Silent Hill 1: A Novelization
by fallen Inquisitor
Summary: Harry Mason lives quietly with his adopted daughter Cheryl, until they take a trip to the town of Silent Hill. While driving into town, Harry crashes his car swerving to miss a girl who appears out of the fog. He wakes up to find his daughter missing. Harry's search grows desperate when he finds the town nearly abandoned and full of monsters. And somehow, Cheryl is involved...
1. Car Crash

**Yep, it's yet another novelization of Silent Hill 1. Not the most original idea, but I wanted to try and really do the game justice. It's so old, that many people of my generation and younger who are fans of the series have never really had a chance to experience it. Shattered Memories changed the story so much that, while still enjoyable in its own way, it's not the same experience. Anyway, here's my take. I'll be uploading bit by bit. Hope you like it! Drop me a review and tell me what you think!**

_Fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh._

I blame the fog for the accident.

That probably sounds like I'm making lame excuses, like a teenager who flunked a math test.

It wasn't my fault! The teacher just hates me!

It wasn't my fault! It was the fog!

Fair enough. The thing is, I'm a pretty careful driver. I was going under the speed limit. My hands were on the wheel. I wasn't messing with the radio or reaching for something in the glove compartment. I didn't have a few beers before getting into the ol' jeep and heading out on the road. I'm not really a drinker anyway, and that would be pretty crappy parenting, with my daughter sitting right there in the seat next to me.

My mistake was glancing at the motorcycle lying on the side of the road. A cop had passed by on a motorcycle a little earlier, and there was this motorcycle lying next to the road. I thought it was odd. So I glanced over to try and see if it was the same bike. I took my eyes off the road for just a second.

But even then, I would have seen the girl in plenty time if it weren't for that fog. It was so thick, my headlights and windshield wipers did almost nothing. She just appeared out of that fog, a few yards from my bumper. Like a ghost. I didn't even get a good look at her. I saw she had dark hair and a blue dress with some kind of white collar, but that was it. I barely had time to react. I couldn't brake in time, so I jerked the steering wheel as hard as I could.

I wasn't even sure if I missed her or not. I tried to stop, but the car was out of control. I pressed the brake all the way to the floor, but the tires made a loud squealing noise and we just kept rolling forward. I don't even remember the moment impact. Everything just went dark.

I need to let this go. I need to stop looking back to that moment and asking myself what could have gone differently, what I could have done to stop it all from happening. I couldn't have known what would happen. I can't change the past. I can't go back in time and not turn to look at that motorcycle. Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. Maybe there were forces at work at that moment that couldn't be stopped. I need to accept it and move on.

But it's not easy. Because of what happened next.

I woke up in the driver's seat, right where I'd passed out. My head ached horribly. I reached my hand up and touched my forehead. When I pulled it back, there was blood on my fingertips.

I felt a cold breeze coming from off to my right. I turned to look. The door on the passenger's side of the jeep was hanging open. The passenger seat was empty. My daughter was gone.

I blame the fog.


	2. Calling to Me

I should back up a bit and explain a few things. My name is Harry Mason. I'm thirty two years old. I write non-fiction for a living. Technical manuals, grade-school textbooks, stuff like that. Boring stuff. I feel like I'm a pretty boring person. Once I wrote a book on criminal psychology. That's about as exciting as I get. I was never a popular guy in high school. I didn't go to big parties. I've never had a ton of friends, and I was never really popular with the ladies.

In fact, I've only ever been really popular with ONE lady, and that's just fine with me. Her name was Jodie and she was the nicest, kindest, most beautiful woman I've ever met. But she's gone now. She died four years before that fateful trip to Silent Hill. Cheryl was only three when Jodie died. She lost her mother before she even really got to know her.

So I guess, counting Cheryl, that's actually two ladies I've been popular with, but you know what I meant.

In case you haven't already figured it out, Jodie was my wife and Cheryl is my daughter. Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that. Cheryl is adopted. Sort of. We didn't pick her up at an adoption agency. We found her on the side of the road. It sounds bizarre, but bear with me.

I was driving home from our vacation in Maine, when Jodie suddenly points out the window and yells, "Harry! I think that's a baby! There's a baby on the side of the road!"

So I pull over and we get out to check it out. And sure enough, it IS a baby, lying there on the side of the road wrapped in a white sheet with some kind of funny symbol on it. Jodie had some sharp eyes, that's for sure. We took her to the police station in a town called Brahms and explained how we'd found this baby abandoned on the side of the road.

Then, a funny thing happened. The officer we were explaining things to was talking about putting out a found child report and asking if there was any possible identification, so we explained about the sheet with the symbol. The symbol itself was this big circle with three smaller circles inside, a bunch of rune looking marks around the edge, and a picture of an eye at the top. We showed it to the officer and he got alarmed. He took the sheet out to the chief of police and some other officers and they had a hushed conversation in the other room. When the officer came back in, he said that the child had been abandoned and wasn't going to be reclaimed by the original parents, so they were going to put her in an orphanage.

Then Jodie asked if we could adopt the baby girl instead. We'd been trying to have a baby for a while, and it hadn't been working. I think maybe she saw it as destiny, us finding this baby on the side of the road. The officer said that would be fine, and they helped us with the paperwork. Everyone seemed quite pleased about it, actually.

In retrospect, I should have wondered more about why the police suddenly changed their minds about putting out a found child alert right after they saw that sheet with the strange symbol.

Anyway, we took in the girl, named her Cheryl, and things were great for the next three years. I can honestly say it was one of the happiest times of my life. Then, Jodie's health, which had never been very good, suddenly took turn for the worse. Some kind of rare, genetic blood disorder. Untreatable. She was dead before the year was out.

I won't lie, I was pretty destroyed by it. Looking back, it was a good thing I had Cheryl there, relying on me. I had to power on and be strong for her. But sometimes, I'd get into this depressed funk that I just couldn't shake. It was one of those funks that set my daughter and me on a path for Silent Hill.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, head in hands, feeling pretty miserable, when Cheryl ran up to me.

"Daddy! Daddy!" she yelled, shaking my arm, "What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" I said, a bit confused.

"You're crying!" she replied, standing on her tiptoes and leaning forward with a concerned look on her face.

I dabbed my eyes and realized that I had, in fact, been crying. "It's nothing, Honey," I said, not wanting her to be upset.

"You were thinking of Mommy, weren't you?" Cheryl asked, not fooled by my attempt to shrug it off.

I sighed. "Yes, I suppose I was," I said, dabbing my eyes again and putting on a somewhat forced smile.

"I don't think Mommy would want you to be sad all the time like this," Cheryl said, "You should be _happy_ when you think of her."

"I'm not sad _all_ the time," I said, a bit defensively.

Cheryl's face suddenly brightened. "I know!" she said excitedly, "We should take a vacation! You've been cooped up in this house too long! You need to get some fresh air and sunshine!" She said that last bit with the all the authority a child quoting something she'd seen on a TV sitcom could muster.

I smiled, ruefully. Truth be told, it _would_ be good to get away for a while. And the great thing about being a writer is that you can set your own hours. There was nothing stopping me from going on a trip but myself.

"Alright," I said, winking, "where do you want our grand adventure to be?"

At this, Cheryl broke into a big smile and ran into the other room. Moments later, she ran back waving an old, somewhat worn-out brochure. I took it from her and started flipping through the pages.

_Welcome to Silent Hill! Everyone's Favorite Hometown!_, it read on the front in big, friendly lettering.

It was a small town in Maine. It looked like a nice, quaint little place. There was a lake too, which might be good for some fun swimming or fishing. There was even a little amusement park. Nothing too elaborate, just a couple of roller coasters, a Ferris Wheel, and some shops. Still, it was an odd place for a little girl to pick for a vacation spot. More like something a retiree would pick, really. I'd certainly never heard of it before. Wouldn't Disneyland be a more appealing place for Cheryl?

I flipped the brochure over. There was a map on the back, showing the location of the town with a big red dot. It wasn't far from the place where Jodie and I had first found Cheryl lying on the side of the road. We must have picked up the brochure on that trip and somehow, it had survived in some dusty corner of the house all these years until Cheryl had found it. That startled me a little. It must have been a coincidence.

You see, I never told Cheryl that she was adopted. I'd never told her anything about that strange end to our vacation in Maine. It just never seemed important, to be honest. So she had no way of knowing the significance of that place.

"You want to go here?" I asked, not hiding my surprise, "To Silent Hill?"

"Yup!" Cheryl replied, beaming happily.

"Well we can certainly do that, I suppose," I said, "But why there, of all places?"

"I dunno," she said, shrugging and scrunched her face up in a troubled expression for a second, "It's just that…" Her face brightened and she smiled again. "I feel like it's an important place. I can't really explain it. But something really, really important is there, and it's calling to me. I can feel it."

That was some odd talk for a seven year old. I didn't really know what to say.

"Hey!" She said excitedly, "Maybe it's Mommy! Maybe she wants to go there so she can give us a message from beyond the grave or something! Oh Daddy, we've GOT to go! I'm not just playing, I really do feel it! This is _super_ important!"

I chuckled nervously. "Well, okay," I said, "But you have to promise you won't be disappointed, even if it's just a boring little town. We'll go out on the lake, and to the amusement park, and even if there are no messages from beyond the grave, we'll have a great time, alright?"

"Yes! Yes!" she shouted and threw her arms around me in a big hug, "Oh thank you, Daddy!"

I hugged her back, lifted her up in my arms, and spun her around. We both had a good laugh, and I forgot all about being depressed. The strange thing's she'd said made me feel uneasy deep in my gut, but I quickly brushed it off as the product of a child's overactive imagination.

Little did I know how wrong I was.


	3. Beware of Dog

As soon as I saw that Cheryl wasn't in the car, a jolt of fear and adrenaline broke me out of my daze. I pushed my door open and leaped out of the car… only to stumble and nearly collapse on the ground. I was still feeling lightheaded from the crash. I'd have to take it slow and easy, at least for now. It was frustrating, because my mind was already racing a thousand miles an hour with worry.

Where was Cheryl? Why did she get out of the car? Maybe she'd run off to get help. I'd been unconscious and hurt, after all. Maybe she'd panicked. It was understandable. Still, I desperately wished she'd stayed in the car. I didn't like the thought of her wandering around alone in a strange place. It would be very easy for her to get lost in this fog too. It was still too thick for me to see more than maybe ten feet in front of me.

"Cheryl!" I called out, hoping that she was still nearby. The echo of my own voice was the only answer.

I looked back at my car. The jeep had gone down into a ditch and was pretty wrecked. It the wheel axle was messed up, causing the tire closest to the driver's side to jut out at a funny angle. The hood was bashed in too, and there was probably a fair bit of damage to the engine. Clearly, I wasn't going to be driving anywhere. At least it looked like I hadn't hit that girl who had suddenly stepped out in the road.

I jogged into town on foot. I would have run, but moving too fast made me dizzy, so I kept a steady pace. Luckily, there was only one road into town from this direction, so even with the thick fog I had a clear path and didn't get lost.

Before long I passed a big green road side that read 'WELCOME TO SILENT HILL.' The paint was worn and it was pitted. That seemed odd to me. Wasn't the town a bit of a tourist attraction? In fact, that wasn't the only thing that seemed off.

It was strange… the town was quiet. Too quiet. Maybe everyone didn't want to go out in this fog, but I still should have been able to see the headlights of a few cars on the road. Or some lights on in people's houses. Or any sign of life really. But there was nothing. Just the sidewalk stretching into the fog behind and in front of me, and a lonely tree in a patch of grass to my right, just close enough that it hadn't been swallowed up by the fog. The place was like a ghost town.

"Cheryl!" I called out again. Again no answer. Where could she be?

"Hello!" I yelled again, "Is anyone there?!" Nothing.

I moved forward, squinting into the fog and struggling to see anything. I came to a spot where the street branched. Not knowing where to go, I was considering pounding on the door to the run-down apartment building that was on the corner. Hopefully someone would answer and I could call the police. Then I heard a noise. Footsteps. They were coming from off to my right.

I turned and chased after the sound. If it was Cheryl, I couldn't risk letting her slip away. Even a full scale police search would have trouble finding a lost child in this fog. I'd only gone maybe a dozen feet when I found myself under a streetlamp that let me see just a little further in the fog. And not twenty feet past that, I saw a small figure standing by the faint outline of a mailbox. Was it Cheryl? I could barely make the figure out through the fog.

"Cheryl?" I asked, unsure. For just a second, the fog parted and a caught a glimpse of a little girl with short, dark hair. It WAS Cheryl! My breath caught in my throat. Before I could call out again, she turned, and started running across the street.

"Where are you going?!" I called out, but Cheryl gave no sign that she heard me. "Hey wait!" I cried out, running after her, "Stop!" But it was too late. She'd already disappeared in the fog. I kept running across the street and down the sidewalk, but I couldn't see her anymore. Somehow, I'd lost her again.

I got to the corner of the street and had to stop, gasping for breath. My head was spinning. Hadn't she heard me calling to her? She must have, I'd been so close. Why did she run away? And how had she disappeared so completely? A fully grown adult should have easily been able to catch up to a small child, even after losing sight of her in the fog for a second.

HAD it been Cheryl? I'd been so sure… but why had she run? Cheryl wouldn't run from me! Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me.

My mind still racing, I turned left and ran down the side street. I guess I picked it more or less at random. I was letting panic get to me, desperate to find Cheryl again.

Luck was with me though, because as I got to the end of the side street, I heard the creaking sound of a gate closing. I turned to the left, and sure enough, there was little metal gate leading to a back alley with a rusty sign saying "BEWARE OF DOG." The gate was unlocked. The latch was up.

I didn't hesitate. I pushed the gate open and walked into the alley.

The sight I saw stopped me dead in my tracks.

There, lying on the ground, was the mutilated corpse of a dismembered… _something. _Blood meat lay in an unidentifiable pile, torn to shreds, the bones poking through. Entrails were strung out from the body across the asphalt. There was blood smeared all over the ground and on the wall next to the little gate I'd entered through. The fog had made the whole grisly scene invisible to me before I'd stepped through the gate. Now I suddenly found myself assaulted by the sight.

But not the smell. The corpse didn't give off the rancid stink of rotten meat, but the wet, tangy smell of freshly spilled blood. That, combined with the fact that the blood on the walls and ground was red, rather than rust brown, caused me to come to a horrifying conclusion.

This kill was fresh. This had been done recently. I felt the bile rise in my throat, but I forced it back down.

_It's a dog,_ I thought to myself firmly, _The sign said 'Beware of Dog,' right? Something mauled somebody's poor dog._ I was working really hard to convince myself of that. It must have been a really big dog. Like a mastiff, or some other large breed. Something about the size of man.

I firmly squashed any more thoughts that were trying to rise up in my mind. I'd been reading way too many murder mysteries and true crime stories. This wouldn't just be lying out here in the alley like this if it was… It couldn't be that. For starters, if something like that was done out here, the noise…

I pushed the thoughts away again, and ran down the alley as fast as I could. I could feel cold sweat running down the back of my neck. I had to find Cheryl. There was a dangerous wild animal on the loose. I had to find Cheryl.

The alley seemed to twist and turn in and endless maze of pipes, metal barrels, and chain linked fences. As I ran, it seemed to get darker very quickly. I heard something in the distance. A siren. Not high and piercing like a police siren, but long and drawn out, like an ambulance siren. It was getting louder. The ambulance must be getting closer. Maybe someone had been hurt by that animal that had mauled the dog, and they'd called 911?

It was too dark to see in front of me now. That was strange. Night could fall fairly quickly in some places, but this had literally been in less than a minute. It seemed… unnatural. I pulled my trust zippo lighter out of my pocket and flicked it on. I don't smoke, but it's something I like to carry with me in case I need it. Be prepared. The Boy Scout motto. Well I was sure glad I was prepared now. The lighter didn't give me much light, just a couple feet in front of me, but it was better than nothing.

The siren was even louder now. It seemed to be coming from all around me. Shadows danced across the alley and I realized my hand that was holding up my lighter was shaking. What was going on?


	4. Everyone's Favorite Hometown

I moved more slowly down the alley now. The siren was still wailing in my ears. Where was it coming from? It must have been very close, in an adjacent street perhaps.

As I stepped forward, the flickering illumination of my lighter revealed another ghastly sight. In front of me was another rusted section of chain-link fence, and sitting in front of the fence was what looked like a hospital gurney. A white sheet was draped over the gurney, and the shape of a human body could clearly be seen underneath the sheet. The sheet was covered in dark, reddish brown stains.

_What is this?_ I thought to myself, horrified. I knew what it _looked_ like, but it couldn't be. It didn't make any sense. Why would a hospital gurney be here in the middle of an alleyway? And a body? It was ridiculous.

I reached for the sheet, to pull it back and see what was lying underneath. But me nerve failed me. I froze, my hand hovering several feet over that stained sheet. For moment, I was seized with the fear that whatever was under the sheet would reach up and grab me, but it showed no sign of life. I pulled my hand back.

I turned away from the impossible vision of a hospital gurney with a body under a bloody sheet lying on it and moved further down the alley. I didn't much like turning my back on that _thing_, but I needed to find my daughter.

There were more reddish brown stains smeared all along the asphalt as ran farther down the alley. I must have been wrong about it being blood. This much blood in the alley would be ridiculous. It must have been paint, or some kind of reddish mud. That's what I kept telling myself.

A concrete wall was to my right, and tall, rusted fencing nearly twice my height was to my left. As I walked, the concrete wall gave way another tall, rusted fence. The siren had faded into the distance now, but now I heard the metallic groaning and clanking of machinery. I couldn't pinpoint the source of the noise. Once again, it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

I was just starting to wonder how much further this alley could go, when I came across another bloodied carcass. This one had been torn into pieces and strewn all over the ground. I was so distracted looking down at it, that I didn't see the next horror until I was right on top of it.

I realized that the alley had stopped in front of me, and looked up from a pool of blood on the ground to see what could only be a human body. It was hanging with arms outstretched like a crucifix, from what I at first mistook to be another chain link fence, but then realized was actually a bloodied wall of barbed wire. The arms of the corpse were wrapped around the wire, and the barbs sinking into its flesh must have been holding it in place. The body's torso was exposed, the rib and pelvis bones clearly visible, while its stomach was mostly rotted away. It looked like a mummy, rotten and desiccated, but the blood all over it looked fresh. The arms, legs, and head of the thing were wrapped in dirty strips of cloth. There was something very ceremonial about it all.

"What _is _this?" I said aloud, "What's going _on_ here?!" There was no answer, of course.

Maybe I was hoping that if I asked out loud, something in my brain would click and this awful situation would somehow make sense. It didn't work. Everything was still surreal and insane. Or maybe I was trying to vent some of the panic that I felt slowly building up inside my chest. That didn't work either.

I don't know what I was about to do next, sink to my knees and have a good freak out, maybe, when I heard a sound coming from behind me.

Footsteps. Very close.

I spun around. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe a psycho killer with an ax and a hockey mask, but I definitely wasn't prepared for what was actually there.

For a second there was only the sound of footsteps, slow and dragging. Then, lurching out of the shadows, came… things.

They weren't human, although they were roughly human shaped. Two arms, two legs, feet, hands… head... They were small, probably between three and four feet tall. Their skin was an unnatural grey color, with a texture like filthy clay. They were all bald, and their heads were misshapen and bent forward at a weird angle, making it difficult to see any facial features. I did catch a glimpse of an impossibly huge, gaping mouth as one lurched towards me with its weird, shuffling gate. I caught a glint of something in its hand, and realized it was holding a knife.

They were all holding knives. There must have been nearly a dozen of them now. Shuffling forward. Boxing me in. Nice and cozy with that mutilated corpse hanging from the barbed wire.

You know how I mentioned being on the verge of a complete freak out? That went away now. There's a certain point at which the human brain gets pushed too far, and instead of falling apart with fear, the opposite happens.

With nowhere to run, I charged the little grey bastards. I slammed my shoulder into one, sending it flying, and threw a punch as hard as I could at another. I hit it on the side of the head with a solid 'thwack.' The hard bone hurt my hand. The flesh felt cold and clammy. It staggered to the side.

It was disturbing, hitting something the size and shape of a child that hard, but these things weren't children, and those knives in their hands made their intentions clear.

I was almost past them, when I felt a horrible pain run through my leg. I turned and threw another punch, dislodging the grey thing causing it to wrench its knife free. A blood stain blossomed on my pants at mid-thigh. I couldn't see much, but the wound felt deep.

I ran, limping heavily. Behind me, I could hear the weird gibbering noises of my pursuers. Luckily, my longer legs gave me a pretty big advantage in speed, making up for my crippled leg. I was going to make it out of the alley, to the street where I could try and get some kind of help…

I practically ran into a section of chain-link fence running across the alley, blocking my escape. It hadn't been there before. I was sure of it. This was the way I'd come from. It was like _the town itself_ was aware of me, and was actively blocking my escape.

"No," I whispered, shaking the fence furiously, "No, no, no, no, nonononoNO!"

I tried to climb the fence, pulling myself up by my arms. My injured leg screamed in protest when I tried to push up with it.

It was too late. Cold, clammy hands clamped down all over me and dragged me down to the asphalt. I felt the hot, rancid breath of the creatures. I felt the sharp, searing pain as their knives dug into my back, sides, and neck.

I screamed louder than I ever had in my life. Everything went black.

**Phew! This long already, and we're still in the first five minutes of the game! I thought it was important to really capture Harry's initial emotional reaction, when all the Silent Hill craziness is still new and horrifying to him. I also wanted to let the suspense build gradually, the way it does at the start of the game as you go further and further down the alley. As the crazy goings-on become business as usual, things that don't relate to character interaction or backstory will speed up quite a bit. Hope you're enjoying it so far! Next time: Cybil!**


	5. Cybil

I jolted awake and bolted upright on the booth I was lying on.

Wait… booth?

Yes, I could feel the soft cushion of a booth underneath me. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw that I was in a quaint, folksy looking diner.

I heard the light clomp of a pair of boots on the linoleum floor, and looked up to see a woman with short blonde hair in a police officer's uniform standing across the diner, looking at me. She was probably in her late twenties or early thirties. Around my age. As my eyes met hers, she folded her arms and smiled ever so slightly. The smile looked reassuring, but also slightly amused. I couldn't see my own face, but I'm sure I had a completely dumbfounded expression that must have looked pretty funny.

I sat up in the bench and rested my head in my hands. It still hurt a bit from banging my head in the car accident.

"Was I dreaming?" I wondered aloud. I must have been. For starters, my body felt completely free of knife wounds. Even my leg was fine. It would also explain all the bizarre and impossible things I'd seen, like little grey monsters shaped like humans, and mutilated bodies hanging on barbed wire.

And yet, it had all felt so real…

"How do you feel?" the cop-lady asked gently. She had sat down at one of the stools at the bar and was turned to face me. She looked both concerned and curious.

I noticed that she was wearing leather, fingerless gloves and a leather pair of pants. Motorcycle cop. The bike I'd seen on the side of the road earlier must have been hers. I'd almost forgotten about the thing, but now I had a fresh chance to regret ever looking at it. Maybe if I hadn't, I would have seen the girl in the road just that millisecond sooner…

I groaned, taking my hands away from my forehead. It least it wasn't bleeding anymore.

"Like I've been run over by a truck," I answered, "but I'm all right, I guess."

"Glad to hear it," the officer said, "You from around here? Why don't you tell me what happened." Her eyes narrowed a little when she said the last part, and she continued to eye me curiously, almost suspiciously. She wasn't just making friendly chit-chat, she wanted information. On what, I didn't know.

"What a second," I said, a bit defensively, "I'm just a tourist. I came here for a vacation. I just got here... I don't know what happened." I shrugged, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed by it all. "I'd like to find out myself," I said.

"Uh huh?" she said, raising an eyebrow. She sounded like she didn't quite know what to make of my answer.

How was I supposed to explain? There was that thick fog, that mysterious girl who had appeared in front of my car out of nowhere, the accident, Cheryl missing, the mutilated corpses and the grey monsters… but that last part had apparently all just been a dream…

Wait a minute! Cheryl! Thank goodness! This was exactly who I needed to talk to!

"Have you seen a little girl?" I asked, with a new sense of urgency, "Just turned seven last month. Short, black hair. My daughter."

The cop's face softened. "Sorry," she said, shrugging, "The only person I've seen in this town is you."

So it wasn't just me. When I'd first walked into town, the entire place had seemed abandoned. That part, at least, _hadn't_ been a dream. And now that I looked around the diner, I realized that nobody was working here. There were no waitresses, no cooks, and no cashier. It was just me and this cop lady. Apparently, she'd found the place unlocked, and probably dragged my unconscious body in here to recover, after she'd found me passed out. I was filled with a new sense of gratitude for her, but I also felt more baffled than ever.

"Where _is_ everybody?" I asked. Wasn't this supposed to be a tourist town? Why was nobody here?

The cop looked very troubled now. "I'd tell you if I knew," she said, "Believe me." She rested her chin in her hand and got a distant look in her eyes, "But from what I can tell…" she hesitated for a second, struggling to find the words, "…something bizarre is going on. That's all I know."

The fact that she, the authority figure and the one with the gun, looked so disturbed, made me feel disturbed too. Had she seen other strange things in town than just the lack of people? What if what I'd gone through earlier somehow _hadn't_ all been a dream?

No, that was impossible. If it wasn't a dream, I'd be dead.

"What's your name?" she asked me.

"Harry," I replied, "Harry Mason."

"Cybil Bennett," she said, flashing me another reassuring smile and nodding her head in greeting, "I'm a police officer from Brahms, the next town over." Then she looked troubled again. "The phones are all dead," she said in a hushed voice, "And the radio too. I'm going back to call some reinforcements."

"Hmph," I grunted, feeling disappointed. I'd been hoping she could help me, but she obviously was having problems of her own. More people on the search would be great, but going all the way to Brahms and back? In this fog? That could take hours! I couldn't afford to wait that long.

I stood up and walked towards the diner's front entrance.

"Hold it!" Cybil snapped in alarm, "Where do you think you're going?!"

"My daughter," I said firmly, "I've gotta find her!"

Cybil jumped out of her seat. "No way," she said, in a commanding, no-nonsense tone, "It's dangerous out there." Once again, something in her tone made me think that she'd seen more in Silent Hill than she'd mentioned to me.

But I was driven by something far greater than any fear for my own safety, and she was only making me feel more determined than ever. "In that case," I said, "I need to find her now! Cheryl's my little girl. I can't just leave her out there by herself!"

She tried to stare me down, but I met her stare. For a moment, Cybil and I glared at each other wordlessly. I wasn't going to sit on my hands waiting for her to get reinforcements, while my daughter wandered around this freaky abandoned town that even a cop was scared of. No way. And Cybil would have to wrestle me down and handcuff me to the bar if she wanted to stop me.

Cybil sighed heavily. She must have read the determination in my face and realized she wasn't going to change my mind.

"Have you got a gun?" she asked.

"Ummm… no," I admitted glumly. I remembered those grey creatures and their sharp knives. I was feeling less and less sure it had only been a dream. It sure would be nice to have _some_ form of protection.

"Take this," Cybil said, walking up to me and unholstering her handgun, "And hope you don't have to use it." She held the pistol out to me, handle first.

That really took me by surprise. I was pretty sure that this was breaking all kinds of police regulations. I looked down at the gun and then back up at Cybil's face. She looked very grim. She'd definitely seen something in this town.

I reached out and grasped the gun by the handle. Cybil didn't let go.

"Now listen," she said in that same firm, no-nonsense voice from earlier, "Before you pull the trigger, know who you're shooting."

_Who? _I thought, _Or what?_

"And don't use it unless you have to," she added, "And don't go blasting _me_ by mistake."

_Of course not!_ I thought, _What kind of moron you think I am?_ Still, it was good, commonsense advice, and I understood why she was giving it to me. In this thick fog, with all the weird things going on, it would be all too easy to panic and start pumping bullets into something before I could see it clearly. That's how tragedies happen. I thought back to those grey creatures again… they were about the same size as Cheryl… I shuddered.

"Yeah," I said solemnly to Cybil, "Thanks."

She let go of the gun, apparently convinced that I would be responsible with it. It felt heavy in my hand, but something about the weight was comforting. Smith &amp; Wesson, 9mm. I wasn't exactly a gun nut, but I'd been to the firing range a few times. I hadn't done very_ well_ at the firing range, but at least I knew enough to not shoot myself in the foot. I checked the magazine. Fifteen bullets. That was pretty good.

Cybil unbuckled her belt and took off the holster, handing it to me. I strung the holster onto my own belt and put the pistol in it.

"What about you?" I asked, "Now you don't have a weapon."

Cybil shrugged. "I'm not planning on hanging around much longer anyway," she said. "But if I run into trouble," she added, giving me a slightly a cocky smirk, "I'll have to make do with this." She patted the nightstick she was still wearing on her hip.

"You'd do best to stay nearby," Cybil added, stepping past me and pushing open the door, "I'll be back with help as quick as I can." With that, she stepped out the door and into the fog.

"Good luck!" I called to her as she disappeared.

"Good luck to you too, Harry!" I heard her call back. Then the door swung shut and she was gone.


	6. Waking to the Nightmare

Once I was all alone again, my determination dimmed a little. I felt the fear and loneliness from when I was wandering around earlier come bubbling to the surface again. I'm not ashamed to admit, I had a sudden, childish wish that Cybil had stayed with me instead of going for backup. She had a strong, comforting presence, and seemed like someone I could become good friends with if I was given the chance. She wasn't bad looking either. Maybe when all this was over we could meet up again and have coffee or something…

I angrily squashed my daydreaming. I was distracting myself, sidetracking my thoughts so I could avoid the situation at hand. But as scary as it was to be alone in this town, I had a greater fear driving me. The fear of losing my daughter.

Before I left the diner, I decided to take a look around for supplies. It seemed safe, at least for the moment, so it was a good place make preparations before journeying out into the fog again.

I found a kitchen knife on a nearby table and decided to pocket it. I searched a little more and found a whole treasure trove of useful things on the bar counter. There was a map of Silent Hill, with the diner where I was circled. My guess was that Cybil had been using it. That would definitely come in handy while I was wandering around town. I folded it up and put it in my pocket.

There was also a hands-free flashlight that I could clip onto my jacket pocket. I flipped it on and found the batteries were good and the light was nice and bright. It didn't look police issue, so it probably wasn't Cybil's. I wondered why it had been left there. Did it have something to do with why the town was abandoned? Had whatever happened been so sudden that people had fled and left their things behind? No, that didn't quite add up. There were no overturned chairs, or half eaten food, or any other sign that people had fled the diner in a panic. No closer to solving the mystery, I turned off the light and clipped it to my pocket.

I heard a low crackling burst of static. It was coming from a small, portable radio that was also sitting on the counter. I picked it up and started fiddling with the knob, seeing if I could get a clear signal. Why had it only started making noise now?

My thoughts were interrupted by the window behind me exploding. A high pitched shriek tore through the air.

I dove to the ground and rolled, still clutching the radio. There was a crashing noise as something smashed the light fixture overhead, drowning the diner in darkness. Above me I heard what sounded like the beating of a pair of massive, leathery wings, like some kind of giant bat was overhead. Dropping the radio, I scrambled for the pistol with one hand and groped around for the switch to the flashlight with the other.

I found the flashlight switch first. I flipped it on and blinked frantically, desperately trying to adjust my eyes as the beam of light illuminated the monstrosity above me.

My thoughts of a giant bat hadn't been entirely wrong. The thing had big, bat-like wings and its wingspan was probably as wide as I was tall. The head was wrong for a bat though. It had an elongated snout filled with sharp fangs and resembled some kind of fleshy crocodile. The torso and legs were disturbingly humanoid. It looked to me like some combination of an ancient winged dinosaur and a demon from the bowels of hell.

The creature's flesh was a pallid pinkish grey color. It reminded me of the grey creatures from the alley that had attacked me with knives.

The thing made a screeching noise as my light shined on it, recoiling and slamming into the light on the ceiling again. Shards of glass rained down. It didn't seem to like the light. Its reaction bought me a few precious seconds. My hand gripped the pistol Cybil had given me. The thing dove down at me, still screeching.

I drew the gun and fired three shots, two into the thing's torso, and one right into its ugly face. It shrieked even louder than before and swerved wildly. I rolled aside again, narrowly avoiding the flying creature as it slammed into the floor. Before it could take to the air again, I pulled the knife out of my pocket and stabbed at it.

The blade sank deep into the creature's neck. It bucked, flailed, and screeched. I felt the thing's sharp claws tear through my coat and cut into my skin. Then, with one last whimper, it collapsed and was still.

I stood up, holstered the gun, pulled the knife free of the now dead creature, and wiped it clean on one of the bar stools. My hands were shaking pretty badly now, and I nearly dropped the knife as I was putting it back into my pocket.

This had been no dream. The creature lay on the ground before me, solid, real, and undeniable. I could feel the cuts in my arm and face from it slashing me, and from rolling in the glass on the ground. Either I'd gone completely crazy, or something supernatural was happening in this town. Something… otherworldly.

I walked slowly and mechanically towards the exit, feeling weak in the knees. My foot brushed up against something hard and plastic. The radio. I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I had some vague notion of trying to make it work again later, but mostly my brain was running on autopilot.

I couldn't stay here. It wasn't safe. It wasn't safe outside either, but at least out there I could try to find Cheryl, and get as far away from here as possible.

I had twelve bullets left now.

I pushed open the door and stepped out into the fog once again, but this time I had a whole new sense of dread. No longer did I worry that something awful might be waiting for me out there, hidden from sight. Now I was sure of it.

**My laptop had to be repaired, but I'm back in business! Harry won't be picking up weapons and boxes of ammo left and right like he does in the game. I think that would feel too "video-gamey" and take you out of the story. This way he'll have limited resources and have to mostly run rather than fight, which should keep the story more tense and frightening.**


	7. A Clue

Snow was falling to the ground outside. I pulled my coat close as the chill air nipped at my skin. I took the map out of my pocket and unfolded it. Then I realized I had no idea where I needed to go. I folded the map and put it back in my pocket. I started walking aimlessly down the street.

Then I heard that all too familiar flapping noise. I drew my gun and flipped the safety off. I caught a glimpse of another one of those winged, screeching monsters coming out of the fog. Great. There were more of them. I ducked my head down and ran, hoping that I could get away from it without wasting more bullets. If I kept trying to fight, I was going to run out of ammo fast.

I ran until I felt like my lungs were about to burst. I could still hear the wings of that damned monster flapping behind me. It sounded a little farther away, but I couldn't keep running much longer. At this rate, I was going to collapse with exhaustion before I lost the thing. I cursed myself for not being in better shape.

Then an alley appeared to my right out of the fog. I dove into it, spun around and raised the handgun, expecting to be attacked at any second. But the attack never came. The flapping of the creature's huge wings faded into the distance. I'd managed to lose it after all. I holstered the handgun.

I looked around and suddenly realized where I was. There was a chain link gate hanging open with a sign on it that said "BEWARE OF DOG." Blood was smeared all over the ground and walls. It was the same alley I'd gone down when I'd been attacked by those grey monsters with the knives. Somehow, it had all been real.

I pulled the handgun back out. I didn't really want to go back out with that flying monster out there, but I didn't really want to hang around that alley if those grey monsters were there. Yet at the same time, I was filled with a sort of morbid curiosity. If I went down the alley, would it really be just like it had been before? I decided to check it out. At least this time I was armed.

It turned out, I shouldn't have worried. The alley was empty. Not only were there no grey children, there was no gurney and no mummified corpse hanging from barbed wire like some warped crucifix either.

Not for the first time, I wondered if I was losing my mind.

A fluttering noise caught my attention. Lying on the ground in the back corner of the alley was a loose metal pipe. Next to it, pages fluttering in the wind, was a large sketchbook with a dark blue cover.

It was Cheryl's! It was the same one I'd given her to doodle on so she wouldn't get bored during the car trip. She must have taken it with her. I scrambled over and picked it up off the ground.

After flipping past drawings of cats and stick figures playing catch, I came to the last page where the words "TO SCHOOL" were written in huge letters.

Finally, a clue! I pulled out the map.

In the south west corner of the map, on the corner of Midwich and Bradbury Street, was a big building labelled "Midwich Elementary School." Right away I knew that must be the place. Cheryl must have run to the elementary school because it was the closest thing to a familiar place to hide in this town. That made sense to me at the time.

If I'd stopped to think about it, I would have realized that it really _didn't_ make any sense, because Cheryl shouldn't know where the school was in this town. But after being attacked by demonic dinosaurs, I wasn't really in the mood to calmly ponder each new piece of information.

I did think enough to pick up a loose pipe that was lying on the concrete before I turned and rushed out of the alley. I needed to conserve ammo, and I liked my odds better with the long reach of the pipe than the short reach of the knife I'd taken from the diner.

I ducked low and raised the pipe over my head, fully expecting to dive bombed by the winged nasty that I'd run down the alley from. I wasn't. I strained my ears for the sound of giant, leathery wings and couldn't hear them. It must have given up the chase and flown off. I should have been relieved, but somehow it was just as unnerving in a different way. The way these monsters appeared and disappeared out of the fog, with no one around to see them but me, made me question my own senses. Could I be hallucinating it all?

I touched my fingers to a cut I'd gotten during my fight with the monster in the café. It stung. They sure _felt_ real enough. I chased my self-doubts away, looked down at my map, and headed down the street towards Midwich Elementary.

I got a nasty scare while I was cutting through a suburban neighborhood to get to Midwich. Something resembling a red, skinless dog leaped out at me. I swung my pipe knocked it away. It came at me again, snarling and snapping. I raised the pipe and brought it down on the creature's head with a loud smack. It collapsed, twitching on the ground. I ran, not waiting to see if it would get back up.

BEWARE OF DOG, indeed.

Finally, after what had felt like an eternity, I came to the school building. It was a large, very old looking building made of worn, grey stone. A set of stone steps led up to a large archway with MIDWICH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL printed in gothic lettering on it. Inside the archway was a rather modest looking set of wooden double-doors. They looked kind of out of place compared to the rest of the structure, a little too small and humble for such a grand, imposing building.

I walked up the steps and jiggled the door handle. To my surprise, it was unlocked. The hinges groaned as I pushed the door inward and looked inside. The lights were off. The front hallway was dark. Lots of nooks and crannies for all sorts of things to hide in. It wasn't a welcome sight, but by the little I had to go on, I had to assume Cheryl was inside this school. The decision was an easy one.

I took a deep breath and stepped into the dark halls of Midwich Elementary.

**I decided to forgo Harry running around town finding keys in totally random places to unlock the school because I feel like, while it's fine for a game, it slows things down without adding anything to the story. Next time: We explore Silent Hill's wonderful public education system.**


	8. Midwich Elementary

The soles of my shoes made uncomfortably loud clicking sound as I walked across the linoleum tile floor of the school.

The entrance hall to the school was small. Don't elementary schools always feel small? The ceiling is a little lower than normal. The desks and toilets in the bathroom are all small. It feels strange being around them as an adult. The place feels like it wasn't made for you, but at the same time there's a familiarity. But the familiarity feels strange all over again, because this stuff was a lot bigger when you were a kid.

My flashlight only dimly lit the room around me. I flipped the light switch on the wall up and down. Nothing. Was the power out?

I shined my light in all the nooks and crannies of the entrance hall. There wasn't much to see. To my left was a bulletin board with a little countertop jutting out of the wall beneath it, and straight in front of me were a pair of red double doors leading into the rest of the school.

On the counter, I found a bunch of pamphlets, including one with a map of the school on the back. I tucked it under my arm to take with me.

As I opened the red doors, I felt conflicted.

Because of the message in Cheryl's sketchbook, I felt sure she must have come here. And yet I had no idea where in the school she could be. I wanted to call to her, to shout her name as loud as I could to guide her to me.

But those monsters might be here. If I called out, I'd be leading them right to me. Worse still, I might call attention to Cheryl and put her in danger.

There was nothing else for it. I'd have to search the whole school, slowly and methodically. I pulled out the map I'd found and got started.

The rooms in the school went around in a square, with the building opening up into a large courtyard in the middle. I'd have to search through the whole place systematically.

I tried the first door to the right. It was unlocked. Inside, I saw a dimly lit pallet bed and a glass medicine cabinet. This must be the nurse's station. No one was inside, but when I checked the medicine cabinet and found it unlocked, I decided to raid it for some bandages and antiseptic. They might come in handy if I got more banged up then I already was.

It was a good thing I had a jacket with a lot of pockets to keep all this stuff in. Still, it was starting to get a little heavy and uncomfortably lumpy. It was difficult to find a good balance between carrying enough stuff to be prepared and not loading myself down too much.

After that I went left of the main entrance. There was an enclosed area with a big window and no door, and beyond that, another door. I went into the enclosed area and saw the faint reflection of something light against the dark table top within.

When I shined my light on the tabletop, I cringed at what I saw. There was a simple piece of paper with some kind of itinerary printed on it, and a pair of books lying open. The paper, the books, and the table around them were covered with big, reddish-brown smears. I took a closer look at the paper. A message had also been scrawled in neat cursive across it, in the same reddish brown:

10:00

"Alchemy laboratory"

Gold in an old man's palm.

The future hidden in his fist.

Exchange for sage's water.

Was this written in… blood? I felt slightly sick. Regardless, I couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

The books had the same type of scribblings on them. I read the first one:

5:00

"Darkness that brings

the choking heat"

Flames render the silence.

Awakening the hungry beast.

Open time's door to beckon prey.

And the last one:

12:00

"A place with songs and sound"

A silver guidepost is

Untapped in lost tongues.

Awakening at the ordained order.

I decided to copy the three messages down. I had a strange feeling they might be important. I wondered briefly who had written them, then decided I wasn't particularly eager to find out.

I went through the door attached to the enclosed area and found that it was some kind of waiting room. It was empty except for a few coaches, some potted plants, and a large painting on the wall. I shined my flashlight on the picture and gasped.

It was a painting of a door. The door looked heavy and rusted, with three little windows arranged vertically and covered with steel grating. On either side of the door were what appeared to be a pair of bodies hanging from the ceiling in body bags, with the bags open on the bottom and the bodies' feet dangling out.

I don't know who painted it, but it was certainly in bad taste. What were they thinking, hanging something like this in an elementary school?! Then again… something had gone seriously wrong with this town. Maybe this painting was a fairly recent addition.

I backed out of the room and closed the door. The next set of doors I tried were locked. I went across the hall and realized that I was looking at a pair of double doors that led out into the courtyard. Maybe there was a playground out there? It seemed like a place Cheryl might go.

I pushed on the doors and was met with a soft rushing sound and a blast of cool air. I stepped out into the courtyard and found myself shrouded in fog again. The air smelled damp and earthy. There was a little stone pathway underneath my feet with wet grass all around it. I didn't see any swings, slides, or other playground equipment. Then again, even with the flashlight I couldn't see more than a few yards in front of me in the fog.

I took a few steps down the path and thought I heard something else stepping with me a little ways off. I stopped.

A crackle of static burst onto my radio. I heard the soft thumping of footsteps moving towards me. I took the length of metal pipe I'd had under my arm and raised it, ready to strike.

It wasn't a flying dinosaur demon or skinless dog that came at me through the fog. It was one of those small, grey, human shaped creatures. The ones from my dream that wasn't a dream. A knife flashed wickedly in its fist.

It lunged. I brought the pipe down on its head with a loud, wet, thunk. It fell to the ground, twitching, flailing, and trying to stand back up. I brought the pipe down on it again, and then my boot. It stopped moving.

I took a few steps backwards and sat down hard on the ground. Cold sweat was running down my face and back. I felt something churning and welling up inside me. I bent down and threw up in the grass.

I'd killed other weird creatures as I ran through this town. It had been scary, but I hadn't given it much thought. This was different though. The thing's size and shape had made it feel a lot more like killing a human being. Worse, its small size and the fact that I was in an elementary school…

I couldn't think about that now. Still shaking, I struggled to push myself to my feet. I had to keep going. I had to find Cheryl.


	9. Gold in an Old Man's Palm

I combed the courtyard, searching. It was mostly empty, except for another pair of double doors across from the ones I'd entered the courtyard through, and, in the corner of the yard, a little stone clock tower. It was an odd thing to have there, although it least it was less offensive than the picture of the door with the hanging bodies.

I noticed a couple of plaques glinting in my light on the sides of the clock tower. I bent down to examine them more closely. There was a silver plaque on the right with "A Silver Moon" etched on it, and a gold one that read, "A Golden Sun." They each had a round impression in the stone above them.

I tried to open the door on the tower. It was locked. When I shined my light up, I could just make out that the hands of the clock read ten o'clock.

10:00. Silver. Gold. I was immediately reminded of the notes written in blood I'd copied down earlier. I took out my copy and read it again, but I still couldn't make heads or tails out of what it was actually supposed to mean. I put the note away again.

There wasn't much else to see in the courtyard, so I decided to try the other door leading back into the school. It was unlocked. I stepped back inside and was greeted with the dreaded sound of my radio crackling and small, soft footsteps coming towards me.

It was another one of those grey children, stepping out of the shadows. Monsters. Not children. Definitely not children. My mind was starting to crack under the strain of it all.

The grey creature lunged at me, knife glinting. I jammed my metal pipe into its gut before it could reach me. It stumbled backwards. I gave it a good wack on the head. It went down. I hit it again and it stopped moving.

Despite their terrifying appearance, these things weren't really that tough. It was like they were here to harass, to torment, rather than to kill. Strange.

A sudden, searing pain in my lower back jolted me out of my reverie. I gasped and stumbled forward, jerking the knife blade free of my flesh before it could sink in deeper. While I'd dispatched one creature, another had crept up behind me. Moving quickly, in desperate panic to stop it before it stabbed again, I drew Cybil's handgun and fired clumsily behind me without turning around.

I missed the first shot, but the second one hit the creature at the base of the neck. It made a squealing noise, there was a small spurt of blood, and it stumbled backwards. I spun around and fired again, right at its head. Maybe the adrenaline helped, maybe it was because I was so close, or maybe I was just lucky, but I hit it square in the face.

The thing toppled over backwards, but to my alarm, it kept squirming around, trying to roll over and get back up. I jumped on it and stomped repeatedly with my boot. The crunching feeling was sickening. I don't know how long I kept stomping, but finally I realized it had stopped moving. I holstered the gun, staggered backwards and slumped against the wall. Nine shots left now.

The spot in my back where I'd been stabbed throbbed painfully. It also felt wet with blood. Not good. Remembering that I had grabbed some first aid supplies in the nurse's office, I pulled them out of my pockets, struggling not to drop them from my still shaking hands. I couldn't actually see the wound, so I was pretty clumsy as I whipped it clean with the disinfectant. It stung terribly. I was pretty clumsy wrapping the wound too, but after going around a few times I was satisfied that I'd stopped the bleeding.

Once I'd finished administering first aid to myself, I feebly moved away from the grey creatures before pulling out the school map. I didn't want to look at those things anymore. They still rattled me quite a bit. I couldn't afford to let down my guard like that ever again.

There was another hall filled with classrooms just in front of me. I pushed through the door. Another hallway, but this time there were a set of stairs in front of me. I looked to the left and right, gripping my pipe uneasily. Nothing. I started to move towards the nearest classroom door, when I was interrupted by a crashing noise from up above.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I stood there for a second, frozen in place, pipe raised, hardly daring to breathe. It was quiet again. Ever so quietly, I inched towards the bottom of the stairs and began to slowly climb up, step by step, crouched down, pipe at ready.

I made it to the top of the stairs. I couldn't hear or see anything unusual. My radio was quiet, which was good news, I suppose, although I wasn't sure I entirely trusted it. How did it even work? What if it stopped warning me at a crucial moment?

Quickly and cautiously, I tucked the pipe under my arm and pulled the school map out. Right in front of me was large room labelled, "Chemistry Lab" and a smaller one labeled, "Lab Equipment Room." Hmm. Maybe I could find something useful in the Lab Equipment Room? I might as well try, there was no sign of whatever had made that noise, and the Equipment Room was as good a place to continue searching as anywhere.

Honestly, I think I was starting to feel a bit of a hoarder's compulsion. I felt this need to stock up on as many supplies as I could get my hands on, on the off chance it might be useful. The thing was, most of the stuff I'd picked up HAD been extremely useful. The flashlight, the radio, the weapons, the maps, and now, the bandages. Without it all, I'd probably be dead. When they made their motto, "Be Prepared," the Boy Scouts were really onto something.

I opened the door to the equipment room carefully, ready to fight at a moment's notice. Nothing jumped out at me, and I didn't hear or see anything out of the ordinary. The room was filled with shelves, piled high with various odds and ends. It was very dusty. There were files, old VHS players, and of course, tons of bottles and glass jars filled with various chemicals.

I walked up and down the aisles, searching for anything out of the ordinary and thinking about what I might take. A lot of the labels were smeared, and others were labeled with names of things I didn't recognize. I'm an author, not a chemist, after all. I didn't really fancy carrying any unknown, possibly toxic, chemicals around in my coat pockets, so I had just about decided to leave when I noticed a chemical bottle all by itself on a shelf.

It had been moved to the front and center of the shelf, and the rest of the shelf had been cleared off as if the bottle were shouting, "Hey! Notice me!" Unlike the rest of the supply room, it looked like it had been dusted recently too. I picked it up.

I couldn't read the label, because someone had scrawled across it, in cursive lettering, in that reddish brown substance that was probably blood: "Sage's Water."

Sage's water, huh? I pulled out the note I'd taken earlier.

"Gold in an old man's palm,

the future hidden in his fist,

exchange for sage's water."

It unnerved me a little, but I took the bottle and put it in my pocket. Some force was working really hard to call attention to it, and it seemed both rude and unwise to ignore. For good or ill, it was probably important.

Not seeing anything else in the room, I decided to check next door. The chemistry lab was quite a bit larger, with padded stools and big, sprawling black tables. It actually looked like a pretty nice place.

As I swept the light from my flashlight across the tabletops, I saw something that made my heart skip a beat. Lying on one of the tables was a withered, severed human hand. At least that's what I thought it was. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it looked a little off. Propelled by morbid curiosity, I moved closer and discovered that it wasn't a hand, but a realistic statue of a hand. It was facing palm down, and seemed to be clutching something. Something golden and metallic glinted beneath the fingers.

"Gold in an old man's palm"

I tried to pull the hand up, but it seemed to be fused to the table. After several minutes of tugging, scraping, and bloodying my fingernails, I concluded that it was solid. I wasn't going to loosen either the hand or what it was holding this way.

I pulled out the riddle again. "The future hidden in his fist…," okay then… "Exchange for sage's water." Aha! I pulled out the chemical bottle that someone had written, "Sage's Water" on. I couldn't move the hand, so feeling slightly nervous, but not knowing what else to do, I unscrewed the cap and poured the contents of the bottle on top of it.

There was a loud hissing sound and a foul stench. White smoke rose up from the hand. I stepped away, shielding my face with my arm and wondering if I'd made a huge mistake. Fortunately, the smoking and hissing stopped after a few seconds. The foul smell still hung in the air, but when I looked down I saw that the hand statue had cracked and crumbled to pieces. Something in it must have reacted to the chemical.

Lying unharmed beneath the crumbled remains of the hand was some kind of large, circular golden medallion. I brushed the crumbled rock away and picked it up. There was an odd circular pattern with three smaller circles inside. It looked familiar, somehow. I put the medallion in my pocket. I'll admit, finding it was kind of exciting. It was like finding buried treasure. Certainly the closest thing I'd had to a 'fun' experience since coming to this town.

I left the chemistry lab and heard another crashing sound from down below. This time I ran down the stairs, trying to catch whatever was down there before it disappeared again. I held my metal pipe in a baseball bat pose, ready for anything.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I once again was met with nothing but silence and the sight of an empty hallway. Then I noticed something. One of the classroom doors was ajar. They'd all been closed before. Cautiously, I inched up to the door, doing my best to not make a sound. My breathing sounded unusually loud in my ears. I stretched out my hand and grasped the handle.

Taking a deep breath, I threw open the door and stepped into the classroom.


	10. Alessa

"Cheryl!" I cried. A feeling of joy and relief swept through me. I almost broke down right there. I stepped towards the small, dark haired figure sitting at a desk, with my arms outstretched, expecting her to jump up and run to embrace me.

The girl looked up. I froze. For a second my head was spinning with confusion, and then I felt my spirits plummet with disappointment.

"You're not…" I stammered, stunned, "You're not Cheryl."

It was true. The girl sitting at the desk looked so much like Cheryl. She was practically a dead ringer. Except she was too old. She must have been in her early teens. She had on a rather old fashioned looking blue dress with a big white collar, along with a pair high white socks and shiny black shoes. Not the sort of clothes Cheryl would wear, at least not without a fight. It must be some kind of school uniform.

The girl didn't reply. She just kept staring at me. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes seemed to dig straight into my soul.

"I'm sorry," I stammered awkwardly, "I thought you were my daughter. You haven't seen her, have you? Just turned seven last month. Short, dark…" I chuckled, "Actually, she looks a lot like you. Have you seen her?"

The girl shrugged.

I sighed heavily, my spirits falling further. It was terrible, having my hopes rise like that only to have them so completely dashed.

"What's your name?" I asked the girl.

"What's yours?" the girl asked in reply. She may have looked a lot like Cheryl, but she sounded and acted a lot different. Cheryl was bright and cheerful. This girl was serious, even solemn, and guarded.

"I'm Harry," I said, trying my best to sound friendly and nonthreatening. I got down on one knee so I could talk to her without towering over her. "Harry Mason. Do you know where I can find another adult or a working phone? I really need to find my daughter."

The girl was quiet for a minute, staring at me some more. Then she turned back to her desk. I realized she was holding a pencil and scribbling something on a piece of paper.

"My name is Alessa," the girl said softly, "There aren't any working phones. Maybe there are a few adults, but I don't know where they are. Everyone's gone away." She sounded tired, and maybe a little… wistful? She didn't come across as a teenager. An old soul in a young body, I guess they call it.

I sighed again. "I was afraid of that. Listen," I added anxiously, "I don't think you should be here alone."

"Why not?" Alessa asked indifferently, not looking up.

"Because it's dangerous!" I replied, standing back up, "There are strange things… monsters running around! I know it sounds crazy, but I'm serious! One of them stabbed me earlier!"

Alessa set her pencil down neatly on her desk and turned back to look at me again. "Is it so strange though?" she said in a hushed voice, her eyes narrowing, "Or were the monsters always here? Maybe you just couldn't see them before. Maybe you missed them in the daylight, and only noticed they were monsters when the fog came out and the sun went down."

Those dark eyes were boring into me and picking me apart again, but now instead of curiosity there was a fear and pain beyond anything I'd ever experienced. Her sudden intensity was too much for me and I looked away.

"I don't think…" I stammered, "I don't think so. I don't think I'd miss something like that," I finished lamely. "But maybe it would be better if you came with me. I could help you find your parents…"

"Children shouldn't go with strangers," she replied coolly.

I opened my mouth to protest, but couldn't think of a comeback. She had a point there. She didn't know me. I could be some weird creep for all she knew.

"You should leave," Alessa said, getting up from her desk. It made a low creaking noise as she stood.

"That's what I want to do," I replied, "But I have to find my daughter first."

"I _mean_ you should leave _now_," Alessa's voice dropped to a tense whisper. "Leave this town. Without her. You seem like a nice man Harry, but there are things going on here that you can't understand. Besides, she's not really your daughter anyway."

"Of course she is!" I snapped, losing my temper, "I love her more than anything in the world, and I'm going to find her and get her out of here! I'm not going to let her get hurt. No, I don't understand what's going on here, but you know what? I don't care! I'm not leaving without her! I'll die first!"

Alessa looked down at the ground. Her shoulders trembled. She clenched handfuls of her dress in her hands so tightly her knuckles turned white. Was she crying?

"I'm sorry! Please don't be upset!" I pleaded, "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. I'm just feeling a little tired and stressed."

"No," she said, her voice choked and strained, "It's not your fault. I just don't understand why it has to be so hard… why it has to be so unfair…" She trailed off, and then, more firmly: "I think we're done here, Harry Mason."

"What do you…?" I began.

"If you want to learn more," she cut me off, "You'll have to go through the clock tower." She looked back up at me. Even though it had sounded like she'd been crying, her eyes were dry. "You should leave but… you won't, will you? I tried. I'm sorry. You're an amazing man, Harry Mason. I hope you…" she choked on her words a little again, "…make it out okay."

I felt my face blush in embarrassment. Me? An amazing man? Hardly. "Thanks," I replied, "I hope you make it out okay too."

She looked down at the ground again. Then, without warning she darted past me, out of the classroom, and shut the door behind her.

"Hey!" I yelled. I darted up to the door and yanked it open, but by the time I looked down the hallway she was nowhere to be scene. Could she really have disappeared so fast? I cursed inwardly.

I was about to exit the classroom, when I remembered something. I turned and walked back to the desk Alessa had been sitting at.

There was a piece of paper on the desk with a drawing on it. This must have been what Alessa was working on. I picked it up. The drawing had a very familiar looking circular symbol at the top, with three smaller circles inside. Below that was a figure. The left half of the figure was a dark haired woman with a halo, looking very much like a stereotypical angel. The right half was a horned, daemonic looking, goat-headed thing. It was rather well drawn, and also more than a bit disturbing looking. Dark lines crisscrossed through the whole picture, as though Alessa had decided it was no good and tried to scribble it out at the last second.

I looked down and noticed something else. In deep, jagged letters, with some kind of sharp object, someone had carved "WITCH GO HOME," "DROP DEAD," and "THIEF" on the top of the desk. "WITCH" was carved several places on the sides of the desk too, along with "SATANIST" and "FREAK."

Even now that I was a hardened monster slayer, the sight upset me more than a little. Why did kids have to be so cruel to each other?

Wait a minute! _How did Alessa know that Cheryl wasn't actually, by blood, my daughter?_ The thought suddenly smacked me upside the head like a pile driver. That was what she'd meant, wasn't it? _Besides, she's not really your daughter anyway._ She knew Cheryl was adopted! How could she possibly know that? Unless… No that still didn't make any… But how…?

I dropped the paper back on the desk and left it there. I turned and bolted back out of the classroom, looking frantically down the halls and in the rooms, not just for Cheryl, but Alessa now too.

...

**Soooo, I've been pretty faithful to the game so far, but I went off script a little for this one. "Blasphemy!" some may cry, but I hope most of you like it better for this. Alessa is such an interesting character, and so central to the plot, it seemed like a shame to not flesh out her part more. Besides, having Harry learn everything through memos and books, while it may work in a video game seems kinda boring and repetitive for a story. Anyway, I hope you like it! Drop me a review if you want to let me know what you think.**


	11. Birds Without a Voice

After searching up and down the hallway, tugging on locked doors and snooping through empty classrooms, I realized that I wasn't going to catch up with Alessa. She was gone. How she'd disappeared so fast, I didn't know. It was far from the strangest thing that had happened today.

With my lead gone, I needed to come up with a new strategy. Should I keep searching every corner of the school systematically? Alessa had told me I needed to go to 'through' the clock tower. Of course, she'd also told me I should stop looking for Cheryl and just leave. Could I trust her? What did she mean by go 'through' the clock tower? It didn't lead anywhere. It was just a little tower. It had a door, which probably opened to a little room full of gears that kept the clock tuned. Maybe there was a clue inside.

I decided to check out the clock tower again. If nothing else, it was faster than searching the whole school. When I stepped back out into the courtyard, the fog was as thick as ever. I couldn't even see the bodies of the two grey creatures I'd killed earlier. Not that I looked very hard for them, mind you. Fortunately, getting to the clock tower was a simple matter of following the path. When I got to the tower, I jiggled the knob on the door. Still locked. I don't know what I was expecting. That Alessa had come by and opened it for me? Yeah, keep dreaming Harry.

Then I remembered the plaques on either side of the door. I checked the one on the right again. A Golden Sun. Well that was obvious, wasn't it? I reached into my coat and pulled out the golden disk I'd gotten from the chemistry lab. There was a circular indentation in the tower just above the plaque. I pushed the disk into it. The disk fit perfectly.

I heard a loud, mechanical clicking noise up above my head, followed by the chime of a clock striking. I went back to the front of the clock and looked up. I had to really strain with flashlight and stand on my tiptoes, but I just made out that the clock now read twelve o'clock. Putting the medallion in the side must have caused it to change. How the heck did that work?

I tried the door again. Still locked. I was beginning to get an idea of how this thing worked. I pulled out the note I'd taken down earlier from the bloody poems in the schoolbooks.

"12:00." That must be the riddle I needed to solve next. "A place with songs and sound." Before the poem had said, "Alchemist's laboratory," and the gold medallion had been in the school chemistry lab. "A place with songs and sound" must be… music class! I remembered my own elementary school days. I'd always been embarrassed by those silly songs they made us sing. Sometimes they made us do a silly dance with the songs, which I hated even more. Needless to say, I didn't join the marching band when I was older.

I pulled out the school map and looked for the music room. It was upstairs, not too far from the chemistry lab. I walked back upstairs again. I was moving less cautiously now. I think I was starting to get a little fed up with this town and its weird mind games. I came to the music room. I opened the door and went inside.

The music room was mostly empty. There was a piano on one side, and a chalkboard on the other. A music sheet was tacked onto the chalkboard. I walked up to take a closer look. There was a message written across the music sheet in red. Same hand writing as before. I wasn't exactly surprised.

"A Tale of Birds Without a Voice," the piece was titled.

"First flew the greedy Pelican

Eager for the reward

White wings flailing.

Then came a silent Dove

Flying beyond the Pelican,

As far as he could.

A Raven flies in,

Flying higher than the Dove

Just to show he can.

A Swan glides in to find a peaceful spot

Next to another bird.

Who will show the way?

Who will be the key?

Who will lead to the silver reward?

"Great," I muttered to myself, "More riddles." I was getting awfully sick of riddles. "The silver reward" was clearly what I was after. But the rest of it… I was at a loss. I slammed my fist into the chalkboard in frustration, making it shudder. I wanted to tear the paper off the board and tear it to pieces, but I restrained myself. I took a couple deep breaths to calm down.

I decided to take a look at the piano, since it was the only other thing in the room. Dark red stains spread across some of the keys in the middle of the keyboard. It was a good thing I wasn't a germaphobe. With all this blood smeared over stuff I came across, I wouldn't have been able to function at all.

I plinked softly on one of the piano keys. A note played soft and low against the silence of the room. I played a few more notes, making my way up the piano scale until I came to the blood stained keys. After hesitating for a moment, I pushed it down. Nothing. The other keys had played fine, but the blood stained key didn't make a sound.

I swept my hand across the rest of the piano. Most of the piano played like normal, but several of the keys that were smeared with blood were silent. Birds without a Voice. Now I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do.

I walked back over to the music on the chalkboard and studied the poem. There were four birds, three white and one black. If the birds were keys, then I needed to play four of the silent keys in the right order. I tore the sheet off the chalkboard and carried it over to the piano for easier reference. I decided to guess that the greedy pelican was the silent white key furthest to the left. That would make the silent white key furthest to the right the dove. Then the raven must be the black key just above the dove. And the swan was next to another silent key… I fumbled around a bit, pushing the keys in several sequences until finally, I heard a heavy thud on the carpet behind me.

I spun around dropping the music sheet and raising my pipe to swing. There were no enemies though. A large piece of silver in the shape of a circle was lying on the carpet, gleaming in the soft glow of the room's lights. It looked just like the gold piece I'd fit in the clock tower earlier. I walked over and picked it up. It must have fallen from somewhere up above. The piano must have been rigged to trip some kind of mechanism that had knocked it down. I put the silver medallion into my pocket. Time to go back to the clock tower.

I was walking down the stairs when I heard a crackle from my radio. I readied my pipe. It was one of those little grey devils, lurking at the bottom of the staircase. I didn't even wait for it to come at me this time, I smashed the pipe down on its head with a sickening crunch. It squirmed on the floor till I brought my foot down hard on the back of its neck. There was a wet cracking sound and it lay still.

It had been easier this time. Not just because I was ready. Emotionally it was easier. Killing these small, human shaped creatures, beating them to death, had been an extremely emotionally draining experience. But it now it felt less draining. I was getting used to it. Getting jaded. I wasn't sure that was a good thing.

I went back through the double doors to the courtyard and felt the familiar blast of cold air. I walked to the clock tower and inspected the right side. Sure enough, above the silver plaque, there was another circular indentation. I pushed the silver medallion into place. There was a clicking noise and the chiming of a bell once more.

I walked around to the front of the tower. I pulled on the door to open it. Still locked. I cursed and kicked the door several times in frustration. It held firm, but at least it made me feel slightly better.

Of course the door wouldn't open. I had one more riddle to solve. I was beginning to feel like I was being led around by the nose. Like I was a hamster in a maze, running for a piece of cheese. And if I was a hamster running for cheese, someone must be watching in a white lab coat and taking notes. Someone was playing with me. Someone was getting a kick out of making me run all over the school, fetching pieces of silver and gold, and playing a blood stained piano. Who or what was responsible for this? I wasn't sure if I actually wanted to know. These games were not the product of healthy mind.

But I was running this maze for my daughter, not a piece of cheese. I took deep breath and summoned my strength again. I looked up at the clock. Five o'clock. I pulled out my notebook.

**...**

**When it comes to turning Silent Hill into a written story, the puzzles present a bit of a conundrum. On one hand, they're often long and complicated and don't contribute all that much to the main story. On the other hand, they're an important part of what builds the atmosphere and world of Silent Hill. The puzzles are often bizarre and disturbing in nature, and have cult overtones that help the audience grasp what The Order is all about without having to spell it out. I'm going to try and find a balance. Obviously, I've written the clock tower puzzle in in its entirety. I probably will shorten most of the other puzzles. To be honest, I found writing out the solving of all of these riddles step by step to be kinda boring, and I'd prefer to focus on character interaction. Still, I think it established some important themes: Harry feels like he's being forced down a particular path and made to jump through hoops, as the player does in most of the games. While he has to be very clever and strong to keep going, he still has almost no control over his situation. "Controllable Helplessness" is the video game term for it, which I think is very fitting. And of course, we see The Order's love of artifacts, symbols, and riddles, which will return in full force when Dahlia Gillespie enters the stage.**


	12. Time's Door, A Siren in the Depths

_"Darkness that brings the choking heat." Maybe it was because it was getting awfully cold outside, but I immediately thought that this must refer to the school's heater or boiler room. That was where I would go next. I put my note book away, gripped my pipe, checked my pockets to make sure I still had all my other gear, and headed back inside for what hopefully would be the last trip to get the clock tower open._

_I checked the map and found a staircase at the south end of the first floor that led to the basement where the boiler room was. I made my way through the vacant halls of the school one more time and came to the stairwell. The stairs descended in to pitch blackness below. It had been pretty dark inside the school with the power out, but looking down those stairs, I suddenly appreciated the meager light had filtered in through the windows a lot more. No daylight reached down into the basement to penetrate the black gloom. I would only have my flashlight to guide me, and if that went out…_

_I didn't want to think about it. I didn't want to think about whether those monsters could see in the dark either. Standing and thinking was just making things worse, so I shined my flashlight down and started to descend. I hadn't reached the "choking heat" yet, but the "darkness" bit was definitely covered. _

_My footsteps sounded uncomfortably loud in my own ears as I walked down the staircase. I could only see the small area my flashlight illuminated in front of me. Everything else was enveloped in shadow. Something could be skulking just a few feet away behind me or a little to the side, and I wouldn't know it. At least I still had my radio. I desperately hoped it worked the way I was assuming it did._

_At the end of the staircase was a small hallway. I shined my flashlight all around and found it empty. There was a door off to the right. I knew from the map that the boiler was behind that door. I reached out and turned the handle. It was unlocked._

_I pulled the door open and stepped into the boiler room. It looked pretty much like what you'd expect. A big, metal, cylindrical heating unit took up most of the room. There was a switchboard on the front of the unit. A switch was lit up in red and the machine was quiet. It was off. _

_"Awakening the hungry beast." I flipped the switch. It turned green. The boiler roared to life._

_Really?__ I thought, __That's it? Just flip a switch? No more riddles? No big complicated puzzle to solve? __I didn't trust it at all. I cautiously backed out of the room, gripping the trusty pipe and getting ready to crack some heads. The radio was silent. Everything was still. I turned and scrambled back up the stairs._

_I made it back to the ground floor and out to the courtyard without incident. I should have felt relieved, but instead I felt more high-strung than before. The basement had been a fake-out, a lot of build up for nothing. I had all this adrenaline rushing through my veins and nothing to do with it. Now I felt even more like someone was playing with me._

_I walked up to the clock tower and grabbed the handle of the little door. I pulled. This time it swung open smoothly and easily._

_"Open times door to beckon prey."_

_"If you want to learn more, you'll have to go through the clock tower."_

_This was it. This was what everything had been pushing me towards. I'd worked hard to get this far, but now that I was here… did I really want to go along with it all? If all this weird stuff in this horrible town was telling me to go through the clock tower, it might be better to __not__ cooperate. _

_Yet, for some inexplicable reason, I felt like I should trust Alessa. Besides, if there was even the slightest chance this would help me find my daughter, I had to try. _

_That settled it. I ducked down and stepped through the small door, into the tower._

_The space inside was small, but not as cramped as I expected. The ceiling was high enough for me to stand fully upright. There was nothing inside, except for an opening in the floor by the far wall, only a foot away from me. The opening had a metal ladder leading down. _

_I shined my flashlight down the hole. Once again, I could only see darkness. I was struck by a sudden idea. I didn't really fancy awkwardly carrying the big metal pipe while I climbed all the way down the ladder. So I dropped it down the hole. A few seconds later, I heard a clank as the pipe hit the bottom. A few seconds. Not a long time, but long enough to know that the bottom was pretty far down. On the bright side, at least I knew there __was__ a bottom._

_I gripped the rungs on the ladder pulled myself down into the hole below. I descended the ladder step after step, wrung after wrung. I could only see the ladder's metal wrungs and the brick wall right in front of my face. I felt a strange warmth seeping up from below. As I continued, it grew warmer. The sudden heat, combined with the effort of gripping the ladder and my own nervousness made me sweat. Step, step, step. I kept going down. I descended for several minutes, the heat intensifying. I felt solid ground under me as I took one last step. I'd finally reached the bottom._

_I turned around and shined my flashlight. I was in some kind of underground tunnel. The walls were lined with plain grey bricks. The ceiling barely rose above my head. The floor, bizarrely, was made of thick metal grating. When I tried to look through the holes to see what was beneath, I saw only blackness. At least it felt sturdy. _

_I shined my light around on the floor for a second, searching for my pipe. I found it lying not too far away and tucked it back under my arm._

_My shirt and jacket clung to my body, wet with perspiration. I couldn't find the source of the sweltering heat, but it felt like I'd climbed down into the bowels of hell. Maybe the heat was rising up from below? I imagined for a moment that I'd climbed so far that a river of magma from the earth's molten core was flowing beneath the metal grate I was standing on. It was a silly thought, but I found it amusing at the time. Maybe the heat and darkness was getting to my head._

_I walked down the tunnel, my shoes scrapping and echoing as I went. At first, my own footsteps were the only sound I heard, been then another noise came out of the darkness. It started low. So low that at first I wasn't sure if I was actually hearing something or imagining it. Then the sound grew. _

_It was a siren. Like an ambulance siren. I'd heard this before. Back in that alley I'd walked down where I'd had my first monster encounter. When I'd been stabbed but had somehow woke up unharmed. I pulled my pipe out from under me arm and gripped it like a baseball bat, ready for an attack._

_As I moved further down the tunnel, the siren grew. It didn't sound like I was getting any closer to it though. It was coming from all sides. From all around me. It simply got louder. The heat was still sweltering. I reached up and wiped up the sweat that was trickling down my brow with my sleeve._

_I reached the opposite end of the tunnel and found another ladder going up. It was identical in every aspect to the one I'd climbed down. I groaned in frustration, shoved the pipe under my armpit and began to climb. _

_My hands were slick with sweat now and it was hard to hold on. I got about fifteen or twenty feet up and I nearly lost my grip and slipped off. I managed to catch myself, but the pipe came out from under my arm and dropped, clanging loudly on the floor below. I toyed with the idea of going back for it, but decided to press on. I needed to get up and out of this sweltering heat._

_ It was amazing how saddened I was about losing a simple piece of pipe. It had served me well in numerous fights for my life. At least I still had a knife in my pocket and a handgun with nine shots._

_I wiped one hand and then the other dry on my shirt as best I good and kept climbing. Going up was harder than going down had been. My arms started to feel the strain, and I was breathing heavily. I didn't realize at first, but the sound of the siren started to fade as I continued my ascent. When I finally, gratefully, hauled myself up into the room above the ladder, the siren had gone completely silent._

_I sagged heavily against the wall, catching my breath. I was a in a little, narrow room that looked very much like the room I'd started in when I'd stepped into the clock tower. There was even a little door that looked like it led out, identical to the one I'd solved all those absurd puzzles to open. When I'd caught my breath, I reached out for the handle._

_The door opened with a soft click. Thank goodness it wasn't locked. If I'd had to go back, if I'd had to solve more stupid puzzles, I think I literally would have broken down sobbing. Not for the first time, I felt like I was reaching the end of my rope._

_I felt a cold blast of air as I opened the door, ducked down, and stepped outside. I sighed in sweet relief. But once I stepped out and looked around, what I saw made my heart sink and my stomach churn._

_Where am I?__ I thought._


	13. The Otherworld

_Have I been here before?_

_It was the same. Everything was the same. I'd stepped back out of the clock tower and into the courtyard. I felt the paved stones of the path beneath my feet, and could smell the grass and wet earth. I'd come full circle. All that effort up and down the ladder and in the sweltering tunnel, and I'd gotten turned around somehow. _

_But how could I possibly have gotten turned around? There was only one way to go down that tunnel. It shouldn't have been __possible__ for me to get lost._

_And not everything was exactly the same. I still couldn't see, but now instead of thick fog there was darkness. Darker than it had been in the basement or down in the tunnel. Darker than the most starless night. Beyond the meager light from my flashlight, I couldn't see a thing._

_I felt a cold wet drop fall on my face. Rain._

_I stepped down from the clock tower and turned in the direction I thought the door leading into the school must be in, if I really was right back where I started. But as I walked, I saw something different. It was on the ground at my feet. It definitely hadn't been there before._

_Before there had been only a narrow stone pathway through the grass. Now, a large area had been cleared away, with stone paving the whole thing. The stone looked much older than it had before. It was cracked, worn, and stained. _

_And painted over the whole thing in dark red, was a massive, ornate symbol. If you've been paying attention, you should already know what it was. That giant circular symbol with the three smaller circles inside, and the runes in a ring around the edge. The same symbol Alessa had drawn on her paper in the classroom. The same symbol on the blanket wrapped around Cheryl when we'd first found her seven years ago. It kept turning up. What did it mean?_

_Hesitantly, I walked over the symbol and continued toward where the door to the school had been. I was no longer sure a door would be there. The stone paving the courtyard was different. I really must be in a different place. _

_Yet the double doors were still there, exactly where they would have been before. Only the doors had changed. They looked charred and blackened, as though a raging fire had lapped at the metal doors, trying in vain to consume them._

_As I reached for the door handle, I felt a sudden, irrational terror that it was going to burn me. I'd been frightened many times before as I'd searched for my daughter, but this was different. The fear came out of nowhere, like an alien thing that had invaded my mind. A memory came to me head. A memory of flames leaping up all around me and licking at my skin. A memory of horrible stinging, agony, of the smell of my own flesh as it cooked and blackened. _

_It wasn't a real memory. I'd never had more than a nasty stove burn. Yet it felt so real to me, as though I'd actually been burned horribly all over my body some time in my past, and seeing those blackened doors was making me relive it. I gasped for breath as I felt a panic attack coming on. A panic attack from a phobia I shouldn't even have. _

_With great effort, I threw open the door and stumbled inside, letting the door slam shut behind me. I stopped on the other side of the door, struggling to catch my breath and calm my pounding heart._

_What's happening to me?__ I wondered, __I'm freaking out over nothing now? I must be cracking up._

_Then I took in my surroundings and a new question formed in my mind._

_What's happening to EVERYTHING?_

_The school wasn't a school anymore. It was a twisted nightmare. It had been more than nightmarish enough before, with the grey monsters running around and strange messages scrawled in dried blood inside books, but at the heart of it all, it had just been an empty school. The monsters and messages had been strange invaders, trespassing in an ordinary place._

_Now the walls were completely covered with brown rust, black ash, and red that glistened wetly when my flashlight shone on it. The floor was rusted, filthy grating. There was still no light, and now there was no light switch on the wall either. It all looked so surreal._

_I heard a giggling noise off to my side and spun around. My flashlight clearly lit up the shadow of a small child, but no child was in the hall to cast it. The shadow ran, quickly disappearing from the meager light of my flashlight. _

_I heard footsteps coming from the other side of the hall. I spun around pointing my flashlight at the source of the noise. Two of the small grey monsters stepped into the ring of light, their blades glinting wickedly in their hands. I backed up and drew my hand gun. I'd taken these things out several times before. I could do it again. Yet I felt so much more vulnerable now._

_The two greys froze and looked at me. They leaned their misshapen heads towards each other, and I swear, I heard whispers echo down the hallway from them. Then they both dashed, in opposite directions, out of the beam of my flashlight._

_I was already on edge, and as soon as I lost sight of them, I bolted down the hallway in the opposite direction. I could hear the thumps of their footsteps pursuing. I took several turns in the hallways that were now winding and mazelike, and soon the thumps faded into the distance. I crouched against a wall, trying to be as quiet as possible while I caught my breath._

_Before, all the monsters had all run straight at me, like rabid animals. These two had acted very differently. They'd used tactics. They'd worked together. They knew I was helpless without the aid of light. If I'd stayed to fight, I probably would have died. This small change was far, far worse than the school's gruesome new paint job._

_My greatest weapon against the monsters had always been my intelligence. Now they were acting intelligently too. The game had changed. And I had a horrible feeling I knew why. _

_Before the monsters had been intruders in our world. In the human world. Or at least somewhere close to the human world. I was beginning to get the sense that Silent Hill was some kind of in-between place. A place where the normal world and a world of nightmares overlapped._

_But now I was in __their__ world. The tunnel under the clock tower had taken me much further than I could have imagined. The humanity, the outer vestiges of normality, had all been stripped away. And I was being hunted. _


	14. Running Scared

_I heard the distinct, shuffling footsteps of the grey monsters off in the distance, so I quietly slipped through a nearby door. In the more normal world the room would have been a teacher's lounge. Here it was practically unrecognizable. One of the walls was made of the same grating as the floor, and had a bunch of ragged old teddy bears pinned to it in crucifix poses, stuffed full of pins and blades like they were voodoo dolls. _

_I drew my handgun from its holster and trained it on the door. The shuffling footsteps of the grey monsters grew closer. At least if they tried to follow me in here they would be funneled in through the doorway, with no way to dodge my light or my shots._

_The footsteps came closer to the door and I tensed up. My radio gave off a faint burst of static. I heard hushed whispering noises. I wasn't sure if they were coming from the radio or from beyond the door in front of me. _

_The footsteps moved past the door and continued down the hallway. I kept my gun trained on the door and didn't relax until they'd faded away completely. The radio died down with the footsteps._

_Slowly, cautiously, I inched open the door. I saw nothing out in the hall, but I was lost now. The school looked so different, and my blind dash to escape had disoriented me. _

_I walked through a pair of double doors. Like all the doors in this nightmarish parody of the school, they were blackened with soot like they had been burned. On the other side, was a sprawling room that may have once been the school cafeteria. _

_Long tables were spread in a haphazard fashion around the room. Bottles were strewn all over the filthy linoleum floor. The back wall had been torn open, revealing a maze of twisted and bent pipes, and behind them, a giant fan spinning. A faint glow from behind the fan lit the room, but the fan blades made the shadows dance crazily._

_I heard a strange chittering sound from the corner of the room and a low burst of static from my radio. There was a rattling sound across the floor as something rushed at me. The flickering late made it impossible for me to tell what or where it was until it was right on top of me, nipping and tearing at my pant leg._

_A giant cockroach. And by giant cockroach, I don't mean your average really big cockroach that might run across the floor at a trashy motel. I mean a cockroach the size of a small dog._

_I kicked the thing away and stomped down on it. It burst and the sticky guts splatted across the floor. I felt the bile rise in my throat and nausea in the pit of my stomach. I don't normally have a problem with bugs, but when a bug is the size of a cocker spaniel, that's when I reach my limit. I stumbled away from the thing, wiping my boot on the ground as I did in a vain attempt to clean the roach innards off._

_I sagged down against one of the tables. It groaned and creaked in distress. I felt it buckle slightly and I stood back up. The giant fan rotating behind the far wall was giving a slight breeze that felt good on my hot, sweaty face, but as I leaned up to enjoy it, I was hit by a wave of stink. I could see more clearly through the big hole in the wall, and behind the spinning fan was what looked like a decaying human body, hanging up on ropes._

_Yep, I was done here. I wanted out of this room._

_I staggered back to the exit and shoved the door open, louder than I had intended. My flashlight lit up one of the small grey monsters, standing only a few feet away from me in the hallway. It was lucky, really. If it had seen me first, I would have been done for._

_I didn't even stop to think. I drew my gun and fired. The monster tried to dash out of the way, but I was too fast, and at this range it was an easy shot. Bang. Right in the head. It went down. I slammed my foot down on the squirming body a couple of times. _

_I heard noises coming towards me from down the hall. The grey monster's buddies. I ran in the other direction, or more accurately, stumbled. My legs felt sore and drained. I wondered how long I'd been wandering since I'd woken up at the café and talked with Cybil. It couldn't have been more than a few hours, but it felt like days. I was exhausted. I needed a break. I ducked into the next door I could find that would open._

_The room was a small sort of hallway, with a black pit in the middle. The grating around the pit was torn and jagged, and the pit stretched down endlessly with no bottom in sight. I didn't feel safe there, so I carefully made my way around the edge to another door on the opposite side._

_The next room was long and narrow, with a foldout white table and matching chairs sitting in the middle. It looked very out of place in this bizarre nightmare world of rusty and blood-stained metal grating. On the table sat several blue, old fashioned rotary phones._

_I got excited for a second, thinking I might be able to make a call, but before I even reached out to take one of the phones off its hinges, I realized none of the phones had cords attached to them. I sighed heavily and slumped down in one of the chairs. Even if the phones __did__ work, who would I call? What would I say? If I told them half the details about my trip through this nightmare world, they'd just think I was crazy. Hell, at that point I was thinking that maybe I __was__ crazy. It would have been a relief, in a strange way, to just embrace the idea that none of this was real._

_Maybe if a phone had worked, I could have called 911 and got patched through to the police station in Brahms. Then I could talk to Cybil. She was the only one who could at least partially understand. I really hoped she'd made it there okay._

_The phones didn't work, so these were all useless thoughts anyway, but at least this room seemed safe enough to rest in for a few minutes. I decided that once I had rested up a bit, I needed to get out of this school. I wasn't sure if Cheryl was even here anymore, or rather, if I was in the same 'here' as her. I wanted to get outside and get my bearings. The problem was, I was lost. The school looked completely different now, and I'd been running all over avoiding the little grey monsters. _

_Well, waiting longer wasn't going to make things any easier. I decided to get up and try to find an exit. I stood up and walked to the door on the far side of the room. My legs were still a little sore, but they felt better from the brief rest. I reached out and grasped the door handle._

_One of the old rotary phones on the table started ringing._


	15. Messages and Mysteries

"Daddy?" the voice in the receiver gasped fearfully, "Help me… Daddy… Where are you?"

"Cheryl!" I cried in alarm. Her voice was quavering and she sounded terrified. I was sure it was her. I felt a strange rush of relief and fear. Relief that she was still alive, fear that she sounded so distressed. Where was she? Was she hurt? I opened my mouth to ask, but before I could, the sound of a click and a dial tone rang in my ears, before the phone went dead.

In my ears, it was as deafening as a gunshot. I'd only hesitated for an instant to pull together my fractured thoughts, but it had been too long. I'd been cut off, and Cheryl was gone again.

My finger shaking, I cranked the redial on the phone. Silence. I cranked the redial again and a third time. Nothing. Then I picked up the phone and threw it violently against the wall. The plastic casing split and the electronic guts scattered across the floor.

The fear I'd been feeling was pushed back to the corners of my mind. I was, to be unusually blunt, pissed off. I'm not an angry person normally. Not much gets to me. But messing with my family is one of those things. I was filled with a new and terrible determination. I would find my daughter if I had to burn this whole cursed place to the ground.

I went out the back door to the room and found a staircase leading up. It rattled and creaked beneath me, but I paid it no mind. The door at the top was blackened with ash. As I reached towards it I felt that strange fear of burning invading my mind again, but I opened the door and walked through so quickly and forcefully that the fear didn't have a chance to rattle me.

The door opened up to the rooftop. Instead of standard safety railing, the roof was hedged by a roughly made fence of rusted barbed wire. Mangled stuffed animals and rotting corpses of actual animals hung from the barbed wire like morbid decorations. The roof itself was dirty and mostly bare. I couldn't see much of the town beyond. Everything was covered in thick darkness. Only the weak glow of a few nearby street lamps were visible. As they flickered, it seemed as if the darkness in the town was actively trying to devour them.

As I walked around, peering into every nook and cranny of the rooftop, I heard a sound start ringing out from a long ways away. I looked up, but could still make out nothing in the thick blackness that permeated the air. The sound was real and unmistakable though. Low, deep, and melodic it peeled against the dark expanse. Bells. Church bells?

I pulled the map of the town out of my pocket. If there were bells, then there must be someone there to ring them. A person, or persons, who could help me.

_Unless it's just another monster_, the paranoid part of me whispered in my head. I ignored it. Anything was better than wandering aimlessly through this hellscape. At least this why I had a clear destination. So, I resolved to get to the church. But first I had to get out of this school.

I turned to leave and heard a clink as the toe of my shoe brushed against something. I knelt and found a small, rusted key. It looked like the key to a storage closet. There were scratches forming an "X" on the end of it. I pocketed it. It was a long shot, but maybe it would come in handy.

There were no other exits on the roof, so I went back down the way I came up.

I did my best to move cautiously and quietly as I made my way through the room with the phones, and back out into the hallway.

I started towards the stairs when I heard slow, shuffling footsteps moving towards me from somewhere up ahead. It sounded like one of those child-sized grey creatures. Maybe several. I didn't want to face more if I could help it. I'd lost my metal pipe, and while I still had the handgun Cybil had given me, bullets were in short supply.

I glanced behind me. I had a pretty long ways down the hall to move before I could get out of sight. I decided to try the nearby doors instead, but quickly found they were all locked. The footsteps were getting closer now and the creatures would round the corner any second. I was about to draw my gun and prepare for the worst when, by sheer luck, I happened to spot something. One of the doors had a little "X" scratched just under the handle.

I pulled out the little key I'd found up on the roof and tried it on the door. Sure enough, it unlocked and I slipped inside, trying to be as silent as possible.

I locked the door behind me and pressed my ear up to it to listen. The footsteps grew louder. I held my breath. It seemed like an eternity before they finally faded away again. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned from the door to examine the room I was in. It was a storage closet, as I'd suspected, but there was something odd. The dusty cleaning supplies had all been cleared out of one corner. Someone had left a book on the shelf.

I walked over and bent down to take a closer look. A small reading light and a pencil were on the shelf as well. It looked like someone had used this closet as a little hideaway place to be alone. I picked up the book and looked it over. The cover was worn, but I could just make out the title. _The Lost World_, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There was a scrap of paper stuck in the book, marking a page. I opened the book at that spot.

On the scrap of paper that was being used as a bookmark, there was a pencil sketch of the type of winged beast that had attacked me in the diner earlier. I felt a wave of uneasiness as I recognized the thing. The drawing was fairly well done. Someone had artistic talent. Had someone else been through here and seen the same bizarre monsters as me? Come to think of it, something about the drawing looked a little familiar, like I'd seen something like it somewhere before…

I skimmed the page where the bookmark with the winged demon sketch had been. It was the passage where the adventurers were attacked by a pack of flying dinosaurs called pterodactyls, and several of their number were carried away. Wait, was the sketch supposed to be a pterodactyl? Yet it perfectly resembled the winged monsters that were flying around the town.

I couldn't make sense of it. I slammed the book shut and put it back, but as I knelt to down and returned the book, I noticed a crumpled up ball of paper on the floor. I picked it up and unfolded it. There was another pencil sketch on it, this one of some kind of lizard-like creature. It was probably supposed to be an iguanodon, another dinosaur from _The Lost World_.

The drawing made me shiver, though I didn't know why. I dropped it on the ground again and left it there. I walked out of the supply closet and closed the door silently behind me.

There was no sight or sound of anything nasty nearby, so I was able to reach the stairs and get down to the first floor without too much difficulty. Once there, I had to wander around for a bit to get my bearings.

I figured out where I was when I found the teacher's lounge. It seemed like the layout of the school was still pretty much the same, even though it was less a school now than a twisted fortress of nightmare. Within the lounge, the painting of the door with the two hanging bodies from the real (or at least more real) world had become a reality. I left the door alone and exited the lounge.

Once I knew where I was, I also knew exactly where I needed to go. It was just a turn to the right down the hallway, a turn to the left and I was in the entrance hall, and then…

There was no main entrance. The door was simply gone. In its place was a sheet of rusted, metal with the bloodied hides of some animal nailed to it. I pushed against it, but it was solid and unyielding. I couldn't get out. I was trapped.


	16. Slay the Dragon

In front of me was some kind of twisted metal turnstile made of spikes. Beyond was a staircase leading downward. After I'd learned that I was completely trapped, I had wandered around for a few minutes, feeling numb and defeated, before I stumbled upon this.

I saw that the turnstile had a pair of red valves on either side of it. I cranked the valves, which moved surprising easily, and the spikes parted, opening the way to a staircase down below. Down the staircase I could just make out a flickering light that looked like it came from some kind of fire. I didn't hesitate. I descended towards it.

Walking towards the fire, I thought, wasn't unlike descending into the pits of hell. I sound like I'm being poetic, I'm sure, but it was more grim morbidity than anything. That this place might be… probably would be… the death of me, was something I'd come to terms with a while ago. That knowledge tends to make the mind wander in dark places.

When I saw what greeted me down below, "the pits of hell" didn't seem too far off the mark. There WAS a pit, surrounded by spikes, and from the depths of that pit a huge column of flame crackled and burned.

I didn't have much time to focus on the flame, even though the heat it gave off was immense and impossible to ignore, because something huge moved out of the dancing shadows on the other side of the pit and advanced towards me. It looked like a komodo dragon, but the thing was bigger than a horse. Most disturbingly, its head seemed to be split open lengthwise down the middle, and flapped open and closed like some kind of hideous, gory mouth.

The lizard beast turned. It must have seen me, though I don't know how its eyes even worked in such a state. It let out a guttural, gurgling rumble, the closest it could get to a roar, I suppose. It started towards me.

Looking back on it, what I did next was pretty stupid. As the lizard like thing advanced on me, I drew my gun. The thing was bigger than a bear. My nine millimeter might as well have been a BB gun, for all the stopping power it would have against something that big. But still, I stood my ground. And as the monstrous, mutilated lizard-thing advanced, I opened fire.

The lizard-thing didn't react as I pumped bullet after bullet into it. It didn't even flinch. It just kept coming. I emptied my whole magazine, and kept pulling the trigger, the gun clicking uselessly. I felt the heat emanating from its body. Smelled its scent, a coppery tang over the stench of rotting meat. It was only a few feet away now. I was sure in that moment that this was the end; that I was going to die. I should have run, should have fled back up the stairs. Maybe the split headed lizard wouldn't have been fast enough to catch me. But it was too late now.

And then the lizard let out another guttural rumble and collapsed. It twitched and writhed on the floor for a moment, then lay still. I still don't know exactly what happened. Maybe one of my shots had struck… what exactly? Certainly not the brain. That had already split wide open. How do you kill something that by all sane rights should already be dead?

Regardless, the danger had passed, for the moment. I looked down at the dead corpse of the lizard thing, then back at my now empty and useless firearm, then back at the lizard corpse again. I don't know how long I did this for, maybe several minutes, my brain having jammed at the surprise of still being alive. Then I noticed the room around me was getting darker. The fire in the center was going out. And my flashlight wasn't helping either. It seemed to be dying right along with the fire.

I heard a light tapping noise on the metal floor. I looked up. Standing in the corner of the room, was familiar dark haired girl in an old fashioned blue dress. Alessa. I took a step towards her.

"You!" I yelled in surprise. "What do you know about Cheryl?"

Alessa didn't reply. She just stared at me, her face expressionless. The room was almost completely black now, but I could still see Alessa clear as day. My head was starting to ache again, like the blow from the car accident was acting up. Off on the distance, I could just faintly make out the sound of a siren…

"You were the one who stepped in front of our car too, weren't you?" I asked, "Somehow, it's all connected to you. What's going on? How are you connected to Cheryl? I know you are! Tell me!"

Alessa continued to stare silently. My head was throbbing. I stepped forward again.

"TELL ME!" I shouted. I tried to sound intimidating, but in my ears my own voice sounded frightened and desperate. My vision started to swim. I felt sick to my stomach. I dropped to my knees. "Tell me," I whimpered, pleadingly, looking up at Alessa.

Alessa glanced past me. I looked over my shoulder, but it was now pitch black. I couldn't see a thing. It was just Alessa and me, lit up in the darkness.

"You've slain the dragon," Alessa said, a sad, wistful smile spreading across her lips, "But you can't save the princess." I realized she was looking at the spot where the body of the giant split-headed lizard lay.

The sound of the siren was growing.

"You told me I'd learn something if I went through the clock tower," I said bitterly, looking away from Alessa's gaze and down at my own hands, still clutching Cybil's now empty pistol, "But I learned nothing! I almost got killed, I'm exhausted, my best weapon is used up, and I learned nothing!"

"I also told you to turn back, Harry," Alessa replied, "If you continue, you _will_ die. It's only a matter of time. And I'd say you've learned at least one thing."

I looked up. Alessa had her head cocked to the side now as she was looking at me. She gave me that sad little half-smile, which was the only smile she seemed to have.

"Like you said," she whispered, "it's all connected…"

After she said that, the pain and dizziness in my skull exploded and completely overwhelmed me. The siren was blaring now, overwhelming everything. I curled up in a fetal position and buried my head in my hands.

And then, all at once it was gone. The pain, the dizziness, and the persistent siren blaring were gone. I opened my eyes and blinked. Light was back. Not bright, but I could see. I stood up and looked around. In front of me was… a boiler?

I was in the boiler room. Not in the strange, dark otherworld, but in the 'normal' abandoned school in Silent Hill. The walls weren't rust and blood, but worn out plaster. Weird that being back in this place, which had been so disturbing when I'd first woken up from the car wreck was now comforting.

I picked up the empty gun, which I'd dropped on the ground next to me when I'd been overwhelmed by… whatever it was that had overtaken me, and holstered it. If nothing else, I could give it back to Cybil when I saw her again.

Alessa was gone, which didn't really surprise me. I walked up the stairs and back into the main school hallway. I decided to try the main entrance to the school again, and lo and behold, the doors were there. And they opened easily.

I stepped out on the street. Thick fog still hung over everything. It was quiet. I pulled out my map and found a location marked BALKAN CHURCH not too far away. I'd heard bells, but that had been in the dark otherworld. Was it still possible there was someone inside?

I put away the map and walked out into the street. If anyone _was _there, I couldn't afford to miss them. Either way, I was going to find out.

**...**

**Hey, I'm back! Even setting aside the "my thumb drive got stolen" thing, these last two sections were kind of tough to write. Cutscenes are easy because they're already formatted like a scene in a movie or novel, but getting story elements that happen during gameplay across is a lot harder. Gameplay can be summed up as: wander around, kill enemies, collect items, unlock doors, solve puzzles, and read documents. That happening over and over is fine in game, but it's pretty dull in story form. Harry wandering around alone without anyone to talk to gets pretty tedious to write after a while, and I imagine it will get pretty tedious to read after a while too. That's one of the reasons I decided that I needed to expand other characters' roles in the story, particularly Alessa, who is so central to the plot but has so little dialogue and face time. I decided I wanted to explore who she is as a person more.**

**Also, I moved to a new place during the start of the new year, so that slowed things down as well. But the next chapter should be easier, because it's cutscene! And I know it will be a great chapter. It was foretold by gyromancy...**


	17. Take Me to Church

Along the way to the Balkan Church, I heard several snarls from somewhere in the fog, and the sound of giant, leathery wings at one point, all of which I gave wide birth. Fortunately, nothing went out of its way to chase.

The church itself didn't look much like a church from the outside. The building shared a wall with a deli, and was a simple brick block with a small set of steps and a pair of double doors out front. I nearly walked by before I double checked my map, noticed the plaque next to the door, and realized this was my destination.

The church was much more impressive on the inside. The walls were white stone, and up front was an altar with a large black crucifix hanging up behind it. The crucifix was quite detailed, not a simple cross, but a detailed sculpture with Christ hanging upon it, wearing a crown of thorns.

I only glanced around for a moment, because my eyes were immediately drawn to the woman who was standing at the altar. She turned slowly, almost serenely, as I stepped into the church. She must have heard me open the door.

The woman was wearing clothes that looked very old-fashioned, almost medieval. She had white veil over her hair, and was wearing robes that looked a bit like a monk's, or a nun's habit, except that they were dark reddish-brown with gold patterned trim around the hem. Beneath the robe, the hem of a white dress hung out around her ankles. Her feet were bare. She also had a red and black scarf wrapped around her neck, which didn't seem to go with the rest of the outfit at all.

It was an odd getup, to say the least, and certainly didn't look practical for fighting off dangerous creatures in a survival situation.

The woman continued to stare at me impassively as I approached. I could make out her features more clearly now. She was pale and thin. Her cheeks were pinched and sunken, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Despite her strange, fancy clothes, she looked like someone for whom life had been rough for a rather long time. Her hair was almost entirely grey, but she had few wrinkles on her face. I had a tough time trying to determine her age.

I realized we were both standing and staring at each other in absolute silence.

"Were you ringing that bell?" I asked. Probably not the best introduction, but it was the first thing that popped into my head. I'm a bit socially awkward at the best of times, and this was as far from the best of times as I had ever been.

"I've been expecting you," she replied in a very self-satisfied tone, not actually answering my question. Her voice was strong, sharp, and husky. It had a presence and power to it that belied her frail physical appearance. "It was foretold by gyromancy."

I didn't feel so bad about my awkward introduction anymore, because, it had been nowhere near as daffy as her response. I mean… gyromancy? What?

"What are you talking about?" I asked, genuinely baffled.

"I knew you'd come," she said, sounding even more needlessly smug.

Okay. You rang a bell. In a town that's almost totally empty. It's kind of hard not to notice something like that.

"You want the girl, right?" she asked.

_Now_, she had my attention. "The girl?" I asked, feeling my throat tighten and my pulse race, "You're talking about Cheryl?"

"I see everything," she replied, again sounding very pleased, and again not actually answering my question. She'd been looking me up and down the entire time we were talking, dissecting me with her eyes. They had a feverish intensity to them. Her piercing gaze and pencils thin eyebrows, positioned in a way that she seemed to be permanently glaring, actually made her seem a bit intimidating.

But not enough to phase me. I'd seen much worse today. "You know something?!" I cried loudly, not so much asking as demanding, "Tell me!" I stepped towards her as I spoke, my whole body tensing. Finally I was going to get some answers!

"Stay back!" she snapped forcefully. Something in her tone made me stop in my tracks. "Nothing is to be gained from floundering about at random."

Well that was a sentiment I could get behind. I felt like 'floundering about at random' was all I'd done since I'd first walked into this town.

"You must follow the path," she said.

Okay, but what…

"The path of the hermit, concealed by Flauros..."

Frustration and annoyance welled up inside me. "What!?" I asked, the irritation plain in my voice, "What are you talking about?"

"Here, the Flauros, a cage of peace…" She turned back to the altar as she said this.

She was talking nonsense again. I had had just about enough of this. I was about ready to turn around and leave.

"It can break through the walls of darkness…" She turned back to me, holding something up in her hand now, "…and counteract the wrath of the underworld." In her hands was a small, brass-colored, pyramid shaped object.

"This will help you," she said, placing it back down on the altar. As she set the pyramid object down she smirked as though she were enjoying some secret joke, glancing from the pyramid object, up to the crucifix and back again.

Again she had recaptured my attention. Break through the walls of darkness? Was she talking about the dark, nightmare world I'd entered when I walked through the clock tower? Was this pyramid thing some kind of protection against the supernatural things that were happening in this town?

She turned back to me. "Make haste to the hospital," she said, "before it's too late."

Without another word, she turned to the side and began to walk away.

"Wait!" I yelled, "Don't go yet!" What did she mean, before it was too late? Was Cheryl at the hospital? Was she in some kind of trouble? If so, how did this strange woman know about it?

She acted like she didn't even hear me. Come to think of it, she'd acted that way during our entire conversation. I was pretty sure she wasn't hard of hearing though. It was more like she thought she was some kind of queen and I was the help. Like I was beneath her. I wasn't sure I liked this woman very much.

At first I'd thought she was just nuts, but I'd met a few people with genuine, serious mental illnesses while I was doing book research, and she didn't come across that way at all. Real life people with mental problems aren't twisted, diabolical masterminds like you see on TV. The ones I'd met all came across as unfocused and insecure. As it turns out, having major problems functioning in everyday life isn't exactly conducive to high self-esteem. This woman was the exact opposite: completely confident in herself to the point of arrogance.

The woman slipped through a door at the side of the church that I hadn't seen before. I cursed aloud and tried to chase after her, but when I dashed up to the door, I found it looked from the other side. I hadn't even gotten the strange woman's name.

I turned back and walked to the church altar. I picked up the pyramid shaped object the woman had called 'the Flauros.' It felt very solid, but was surprisingly light. Was it made of ceramic? Some kind of metal? I couldn't tell. Strange markings were etched all along the sides.

I put the Flauros in my pocket. It didn't fit easily, and once it was in there, the pointy corners poked uncomfortably into my side. I'd decided to keep it though. More than anything else I'd picked up on this disturbing journey through this demented ghost town, I was sure that this was important. Maybe it would protect me in some way if I found my way into the dark world.

I thought back to my second confrontation with Alessa, in the fire pit that had been the dark world version of the boiler room. I remembered the sirens and the pain in my head. I was growing increasingly sure that Alessa was behind these episodes, somehow. She was no ordinary girl; that was for sure. I didn't want to hurt her. Maybe it was because she seemed so sad and alone, maybe it was just because she looked so much like Cheryl.

But if she really did have some kind of power over me, if she was keeping me from my daughter, I wouldn't hesitate. And if this Flauros would somehow give me the upper hand, then so be it.

I pulled out my map of the town and looked for hospital. As I searched, I had a thought that caused sent an uneasy tingle down my spine. I didn't know this strange woman, and I didn't trust her, but I was going to the hospital anyway. Why? Because if there was even the slightest chance that Cheryl was there, and was in some kind of trouble, I had to go. In short, the woman had said the exact right thing to force me to go to the hospital, while still telling me absolutely nothing. She had me wrapped around her finger. Did she know that somehow?

Gyromancy… maybe it wasn't nonsense after all.

**...**

**Told ya this chapter would be easier for me.**

**For anyone who's curious, Gyromancy is a method of divination that involves making a circle of letters on the ground and then having a person spin inside the circle until they grow dizzy and step on one of the letters. This process is repeated and the the letters are recorded until a coherent sentence is formed, or until the person spinning in the circle dies or goes mad. It's basically a more hardcore version of an Ouiji board.**

**Now you know.**


	18. To Alchemilla

Alchemilla Hospital. I would have to cross a bridge over a river that ran through the town to get there. The part of town I was in was apparently called "Central Silent Hill," while across the bridge was "Old Silent Hill." I left the church and began hoofing it down the street as fast as possible. The air was still chill and damp. Snowflakes were also still falling, yet they never collected on the ground. In fact, in defiance of physics, the ground looked bone dry, even though at had been snowing for some time. Just one more little oddity proving to me that even when it wasn't pitch black and nightmarish, this place was not a part of my normal world.

I ran. Maybe the old woman's words about "before it's too late" had instilled a new sense of urgency in me. Or maybe I was just getting impatient enough with the town that I was getting reckless. Even getting attacked by monsters can become routine after a while.

I heard growls off to my left at one point. I banked right and kept running. I was out of bullets and I'd lost my pipe. Fortunately, the creature didn't chase me.

Before long, I reached the bridge. My heart sank when I saw that it had been raised. Nothing could be easy, could it? But I didn't entirely lose heart, because I saw that the control tower to lower the bridge was just off to my left, on this side of the river.

I headed towards the tower, and as I got close I saw that a set of stairs branched off, one flight leading up to the tower, one leading down. I took the steps leading to the tower, but as I headed towards it, I looked down at the other flight of stairs to see where they led. They led to nothing. Quite literally nothing. From where I was, I should have been able to see down to the river below. Even with the thick fog, I should have been able to see some of it. I should certainly have been able to _hear_ it. But the river wasn't there. The land parted, not to running water, to but to an open gorge filled with shifting fog, the bottom of which I couldn't see. Assuming there was a bottom. There might very well not be. Adding to the surreal nature of it, the stairs leading down ended abruptly and jaggedly at the edge of the gorge, as though some massive force had broken off the rest of the steps and sucked them down into the endless void.

I quickly turned from the sight and raced up the steps to the bridge control tower. The tower was a two-story, blocky, pillar shaped edifice that blossomed out wider on the top floor than on the bottom one. A name plate that hung next to the ground entrance read "Orridge Bridge Control Room." It looked abandoned, like everything else in town.

I tried the door and found it locked. I took the rickety metal staircase to the second floor, and found the door there locked too. However, it was entirely surrounded by enormous panes of glass. I reared my leg back and kicked the glass as hard as I could. It took me three tries, but finally I cracked it. After that, another couple of kicks shattered the glass easily. I didn't really care if I tripped an alarm. I wasn't sure if there was any law enforcement left in this town to respond, and if there was, having them show up might not be a bad thing. I carefully scrapped the shards of glass around the edge of the window off with my boot, and then climbed through into the room.

I had to crawl over the metal railing to get inside, and I was dangling a bit precariously for a second, but I managed to get inside without cutting myself too badly. There was a big lever front and center in the room. Fortunately, the control for the bridge was extremely easy to use. Pulling the lever caused the bridge to raise, while pushing it caused the bridge to lower. I pushed the lever forward until I heard the load clanking of the bridge locking into place. After the bridge was lowered, I was able to unlock the door from the inside and leave easily.

I made my way across the bridge and checked my map. Alchemilla Hospital was just a block south, on the corner of Chrichton and Koontz Street, but on the corner just ahead of me was a building marked "POLICE."

After pondering for a moment, I decided to head to the police station first. Part of me wanted to rush straight to the hospital, but I was really only going off the word of a strange old woman, who hadn't even given me any real indication that Cheryl would be there. At the police station I might be able to get some real help.

I crossed the street, and sure enough, my flashlight cut through the fog to reveal the police station sign above a pair of wooden double doors. I opened the doors and stepped inside, only to find the place as empty as the rest of the town. The power was out, like it seemed to be everywhere else in town, but enough light came through the windows in front for me to see my way around pretty well.

I walked up to the long wooden front desk.

"Hello?" I called, somewhat timidly.

No answer.

I walked around to the other side of the counter, opened the door behind the counter, and walked inside. I knew I wouldn't have been allowed back here under ordinary circumstances, and it made me feel a bit uneasy. Guilty even. Isn't it funny how we cling to our societal norms and taboos, even in situations where the norm clearly doesn't apply?

Past the front room was a short hallway with doors leading to a few offices on the left side and some kind of meeting room on the right. Probably a briefing room. That was it. It was a small station. A small police station for a small town.

I decided to check out the briefing room first. There were some fold out chairs, a file cabinet that was locked when I tried to open it, and a large chalkboard on one wall. The chalkboard still had writing scrawled across it in big letters. It read:

Product only available in selected areas of Silent Hill.

Raw material is White Claudia,

a plant peculiar to the area.

Manufactured here?

Dealer= manufacturer?

It sounded like whoever wrote this had been investigating some kind of drug ring. I wasn't able to find anything else of interest, so I checked out the offices.

The offices were mostly uninteresting. I mostly found a lot of official looking documents that I didn't have time to read through. In one desk drawer, however, I found something that made me very happy. A full box of 9mm pistol ammunition. I immediately pulled out my empty handgun, reloaded the magazine with a bit of effort (the spring got a little stubborn as I pushed the last few bullets in), and pocketed the rest of the box. I had fifty shots now, and I was more elated than if I'd found a discarded thousand dollar bill.

It was clear that there were no actual police in the police station, and I couldn't find anything else that looked useful, so I decided to leave the station and head to the hospital.

I left the building and headed south. After about a block, I came to a stone wall with a metal gate. It looked like the hospital should be on the other side. The gate was unlocked, but it creaked loudly as I opened it and walked inside.

I heard a snarling noise after I passed through the gate. I saw the front doors to the hospital in front of me with stone pillars on either side and a sign bearing its name above in bright red letters.

Out of the fog, two of the skinless demon dogs burst forth, snapping and lunging at me. Instead of holding my ground, I chose to bolt for the door. I made it just in time, and thankfully the door was unlocked. I threw it open and dove inside, slamming the door behind me as I did. The door shuddered with an impact, and then another. I could hear whimpering from the other side of the door after that, slowly fading as the dogs wondered away.

After this, I was able to look around and get my bearings. I was in the waiting room. It was rather large. There was a row of dark brown couches to my right for patients to sit in. In front of me was the help desk. Empty, of course. The place was as vacant as anywhere else in town. Still, this was the only lead I had to go on, so I was going to search the place thoroughly before I left.

I noticed that there were a couple of old payphones down the right side hallway. I decided to check those first. They were dead, although I half expected one of them to start ringing like the phones at the school had done as I hung up the second receiver and walked away. They didn't.

As I walked further down the hall, I heard a faint sound. I stopped and listened quietly to make sure it wasn't my imagination. It wasn't. There was a light tapping. It sounded like a foot moving up and down softly on the tile floor. It was easy to mistake for the sound of my own footsteps, but when I stopped walking I still heard it. It sounded like it was coming from a door off to my left.

Cautiously, I walked up to the door, slowly turned the handle, and pushed it open.

In the center of the room, sitting in a chair, staring at the ground and tapping his foot, was a dark haired middle-aged man in a suit. His hands hung in his lap, limply cradling a revolver. As I opened the door, he looked up at me through bleary, bloodshot eyes.

With a grim expression he lifted the revolver, pointed it at my chest, and squeezed the trigger.


	19. Dr Michael Kaufmann

"Hold it!" I yelped, throwing up my hands helplessly.

The man's eyes widened in recognition and he jerked his hand to the side at the last second. There was a loud bang, and I could feel the whistle of the air as the bullet whizzed past, less than a foot away. The shot missed me, but just barely.

I stumbled backwards and shrunk down to a sitting position. "Stop!" I shouted, waving my arms in the air, "Don't shoot!"

He was still pointing the gun at me, but at least he didn't seem to be ready to pull the trigger again. He looked confused. A bit dazed.

"Wait," I said, doing my best to sound calm and keep my voice firm, "I'm not here to fight."

The man slowly lowered his gun.

"My name is Harry Mason," I said more confidently, "I'm in town on vacation." That last part sounded bizarre in my own ears as I said it. What a vacation it had turned out to be. I was about to mention the accident and Cheryl, when the man spoke up.

"Thank God. Another human being." He had a low, slightly raspy voice. The pupils of his eyes moved jerkily and erratically back and forth as he looked me up and down, no doubt reflecting his agitated frame of mind.

Now that I got a better look at him, I could see that he looked like a man who had been strong and handsome in his younger years, but had gone slightly to seed as he aged. He still had a very thick head of black hair which he wore slicked back, and a strong looking build, but he was definitely getting a bit on the pudgy side. His face was pale and his eyes looked puffy, possibly from sleep deprivation.

On one hand, I felt sorry for him. He looked like he'd been having a rough time, and I could definitely understand why. On the other hand, I was also more than a bit angry. _Yeah, another human being that you almost put a hole through._ I remembered Cybil's words. _And don't go blasting ME by mistake._ This was the guy that really needed _that _talk.

"Do you work here?" I asked him. It was kind of an odd thing to ask first, but I guess a combination of the stress and me not being the most sociable person at the best of times made me revert to small talk.

"I'm Doctor Michael Kaufmann. I work at this hospital," the man replied. It was an awkward response, but it sounded like the man was only half listening to me. He seemed rather distracted. By what, I didn't know.

"So maybe you can tell me what's going on," I said. Of the people I'd met so far, Cybil had been in the dark as much as I was, and the two others had been incredibly cryptic. This Dr. Kaufmann seemed like a much more grounded individual, if not currently in the best mental state. If he lived here, maybe he'd seen what had caused this change to the town, and maybe he could explain it without speaking in weird poetry or vague, creepy nothings.

"I really can't say," he replied flatly.

So much for that idea.

"I was taking a nap in the staff room. When I woke up, it was like this." His voice cracked slightly when he said "like this," and he waved his hand that wasn't still clutching the revolver shakily in the air. "Everyone seems to have disappeared," the frightened tone faded from his voice as quickly as it had come, and he sounded more puzzled and calculating again. "And it's snowing out. This time of year. Something's gone seriously wrong."

Well _tha_t was certainly stating the obvious. It looked like Doctor Kaufmann didn't know any more about the situation than I did. He still seemed to be somewhat distracted and scattered.

"Did you see those monsters?" When Kaufmann said this, my ears perked up. While I suspected that Cybil had seen _something_ in the town, this was the first time someone else had confirmed that there were indeed, monsters. So at least that was one more piece of evidence that I hadn't gone insane. That was nice.

The look on my face must have confirmed that I _had _seen the monsters, because Kaufmann continued without waiting for me to reply. "Have you ever seen such aberrations? Ever even heard of such things?"

Before today (Or was it yesterday? How much time had passed since the accident?) I couldn't say that I had. But once again, Kaufmann turned out to be thinking out loud more than asking a sincere question, because he continued without waiting for my response.

"You and I both know creatures like that don't exist!" he snapped, firmly and angrily, as though he could reason the monsters away if he just refused to entertain such nonsense.

"Yeah…" I said awkwardly. I didn't know what else to say to that. The monsters _did _exist, regardless of what Kaufmann or I "knew." I decided to change the subject to something more that was more personally important.

"Have you seen a little girl anywhere?" I asked Kaufmann, "I'm looking for my daughter. She's only seven. Short, black hair." I had asked the question enough times now that it was starting to feel rehearsed.

"She's missing?" The man asked, focusing on me more than he had for the entire conversation. "I'm sorry," he said, "but with all those monsters running around I highly doubt that she's…" He trailed off.

He couldn't have made my gut churn more if he'd punched me in the stomach. There it was. The truth was, I kept going, kept facing the monsters and horrors of Silent Hill, not because I wasn't afraid, but because the fear of losing my daughter was far greater than my fear of any monster or blood stained pit. But what if I was already too late? _That_ was my one greatest fear.

"Sorry," Doctor Kaufmann said glumly, seeing how upset he'd made me, "I didn't mean to alarm you."

_Well what the hell did you think you were doing, saying something like that?_ I thought, but kept to myself. I was beginning to think that Dr. Michael Kaufmann didn't think about other people's feelings very much. His bedside manner probably left a lot to be desired.

Dr. Kaufmann holstered his revolver in his coat, bent over and picked up a black leather briefcase lying nearby that I hadn't noticed before.

"Your wife, she's here with you?" he asked.

"She died four years ago. Now it's just me and my daughter," I replied.

"I see…" Kaufman said uncomfortably, "I'm sorry." Then he walked past me, to the door. "Well I'd better be going," he said with odd calmness, like he was going on a coffee run or something. "I can't just sit around here dong nothing," he added, with a touch more gloom and bitterness.

After an awkward pause, I managed to say, "So long. Good luck out there."

Then he walked out the door without as much as another word or glance back in my direction. After he left, I stood staring at the door for a moment, unsure of what to do. Should I run after him? Should I have offered to go with him? I probably should have done something other than just let him go, but he'd decided to leave so abruptly I'd been caught off guard and hadn't known how to react.

Truth be told, there was something more to it though. Even though he was one of the more normal people I'd met in town, I found Kaufmann rather off-putting. He didn't seem very sincere when he told me that he was sorry for suggesting that my daughter was dead, or when he learned my wife was dead. He seemed more like he was expressing sympathy because it was expected than because he actually cared. If I'd liked the man more, I probably would have made more of a point to stick together. Strength in numbers would have been, at least in theory, a good idea.

But I didn't follow Kaufmann. I let him go. And once again, I was left to face the dangers of Silent Hill alone.


	20. Elevator to Nowhere

After Kaufmann left, I looked around the room. It was fairly large, but there didn't seem to be much there. A couple file cabinets that were locked, and some empty chairs and desks. I noticed a door in the back of the room and went inside. It was an office.

The place was grimy and disheveled. I wondered if this was Kaufmann's office. I looked around, but didn't see much of interest. There was a newspaper lying on the desk with an article clipped out of it. The article itself was nowhere to be found. I left the paper where it was. Not relevant to my needs.

There wasn't much else in there, so I left out of the other door, and found myself behind the front desk in the main lobby. The desk was made of some kind of faux mahogany. Nothing too expensive, but it looked nice. A map of the hospital was on a bulletin board on the wall behind the desk. I pulled the thumbtacks free and claimed it for myself.

Where to go next? After a moment's thought, I decided to visit the large doctors' private office off to the right. Maybe more people were here besides Kaufmann?

I circled around the outer hall and entered the office to find nobody there. A few black leather couches and chairs were arranged around the room and there was a large table in the middle of the room with a faux-black marble finish. The table was mostly clear, but a small, greenish-blue colored key was lying on it. I picked up the key. The letter "B" was etched into the top. I put the key in my pocket. I already had a guess as to what it went to.

I didn't find anything else of interest in the lounge, so I went back into the hallway and started to search the other rooms. I found a kitchen that was mostly empty. Several large stainless steel pots were sitting on the stove tops, and several cutting boards were lying on the counters with partially diced vegetables on them as though the hospital chefs had just been starting to prepare a meal when they'd vanished into thin air.

One door opened into another private office. It was mostly unremarkable, except that several bottles of some unknown red liquid had been smashed to pieces on the floor in front of the desk. The red liquid spread across the ground gave off a very pungent odor. I stayed clear of that stuff.

I also found an elevator, but when I pushed the buttons, they didn't light up and I didn't hear any movement. Either the elevator was broken or it didn't have power.

Most of the other doors were locked or jammed and I couldn't get them open. In one corner of the hallway though, I found a door with a sign stuck to it on grubby looking printer paper. The sign announced that the basement was off limits, except to staff and maintenance.

The basement. I pulled the key with the "B" on it out of my pocket and stuck it into the door handle. Sure enough, it turned smoothly and the door opened with a clicking sound. The staircase leading down was dark and foreboding. I was doing an awful lot of descending into darkness lately, I realized. It would nice if maybe one of these places I was searching didn't have a basement at all. Maybe an attic, to mix things up a little.

I walked down the staircase and, aside from being darker and only dimly lit by my flashlight, I found that the basement didn't look that different from upstairs. I tried a couple of doors to find them locked, and pulled out the map I'd grabbed upstairs. I saw that there was a generator down hear and decided to go to it. Maybe I could get the power on again and turn on some lights. Maybe the elevator would even work again.

The generator room was at the end of the hallway, and thankfully it was unlocked. The generator itself was a big, powerful hunk of machinery, but there didn't seem to be anything unusual about it. I flipped the breaker switch and the thing whirred to life. I tried flipping the nearest light switch afterwards, but it still didn't work.

Somewhat annoyed, I decided to head back upstairs. Walking back down the hallway I encountered one of those giant cockroach-like creatures. The hospital had actually had a pretty good track record of being empty of monsters so far, so seeing that thing crawling around just a few feet away on the edge of the dim illumination of my flashlight gave me a bit of a start. I slammed my boot down on it with extreme prejudice, causing it burst in a cascade of yellowish-brown guts and getting more disgusting goop on the bottom of my foot. I tried to wipe it on the tile floor, without much success.

_This place definitely isn't up to health code_, I thought to myself. The lame joke actually made me feel quite a bit better. Humor really is a great coping mechanism for the human mind.

Upstairs, the light switches still didn't work, but when I pushed the button to the elevator, much to my surprise, the doors slid open. I stepped inside and saw the buttons for the basement and floors 1 through 3. Since I had already searched the basement and floor 1, I decided to try the other floors one at a time.

I searched floor two to find nothing of note. Most of the doors were locked, and the ones that weren't were empty patient's rooms with nothing of interest in them. I got back into the elevator and went to floor three, only to encounter the same thing; most of the doors locked and nothing useful.

Irritated at the waste of time, I stepped back into the elevator to head back to the ground floor. "Make haste to the hospital, before it's too late," I muttered in a mocking imitation of the woman at the church's weird, melodramatic tone. A fat lot of good that had done.

As I reached out to push the ground floor button, I saw something on the elevator control panel that made me do a double take. On the panel the buttons for the basement and floors 1 through 3 were all lined in a neat row like they had been before, but at the top was a button for _floor 4_. I scrambled for my pocket and pulled out the hospital map. Opening it up, I browsed the whole hospital layout, flipping it over to see if there was anything on the back. Floors 1 through 3 were all there, but there was definitely no floor 4. Yet when I looked up at the control panel, there it was, shining out mockingly as if saying, _"What are you talking about? I've always been here. Push me. Come take a look."_

The innocuousness of it made it all the more disturbing. This clearly supernatural thing parading as something as normal as an elevator button was as unnerving as any of the monsters I'd encountered. It really was something to get me questioning my sanity. The thought of what lay on the not-supposed-to-exist floor 4 also filled me with dread.

Still, I pushed the button. Once more I was driven forward, through pain and terror and darkness, by the simple facts that I wouldn't leave without my daughter and that I didn't know where else to turn next.

The elevator lurched to life, and despite me only travelling up a single floor, the trip seemed to last for an unusually long time. Several minutes, in fact. Part of this may have been my own nerves affecting my perception of time, but I don't think that was entirely it.

Just as the elevator came to a stop, my flashlight went out, leaving me in total darkness. I couldn't see two inches in front of my face, and the sudden helpless state I was in filled me with terror. As I stood unmoving in the dark, I thought I heard the faintest of sounds echoing into my ears. The sound of an ambulance siren wailing in the distance.

Then an image flashed before my eyes. It was an image of an adolescent girl with short black hair and an old fashioned blue dress. Alessa. She was standing on the sidewalk on a dark street I didn't recognize, looking at a building I didn't recognize. With the bright signs in front, it looked like a storefront, but the signs were blurry for some reason and I couldn't read them. She slowly opened the door and stepped inside.

Then the vision left, and as suddenly as it had turned off, my flashlight turned on again all on its own. I was still blinking and adjusting to the sudden return of light when the elevator door opened.

I stepped out into the hallway, my eyes adjusting more fully. The walls fleshy and stained with blood. The floor was a rusted grating. I was in the dark world again. Lovely.

As I started down the hallway, I heard a sound: a shuffling, thumping noise. It was coming from a door to my right. I walked to the door, slowly turned the handle, and peered inside. Inside was a small patient's room like several I had seen before, but hunched over the hospital bed in the corner was a slender woman with dirty blonde hair in white nurse's clothes.

I could tell right away that something was deeply wrong with her. She was almost completely doubled over at the waist, and on her back was some sort of large, pulsating, grotesque reddish mound of flesh. I couldn't tell if the mound of pulsating flesh was growing out of her back or burrowing into it, but it the scrubs she was wearing were torn up around the mass, and here clothing and skin were streaked with blood stains.

"Wh-what… what is… Do you need help?" I stammered stupidly, "I.. I don't know what I can… Oh God…" This was the most horrible aberration I'd come across so far. Even the gray, child-like creatures that had attacked me in the alley and the school had been distinctively inhuman. This was a person, or had been.

The deformed nurse turned towards me, still doubled over at the waste. She looked up at me with a cold, glassy gaze and eyes that shone with an unnatural red hue. Her face was contorted with pain. She lurched towards me, moving with surprise speed given her bent, staggering gait.

I saw something glint in her hand. A scalpel. Focusing on me with eyes that saw but did not comprehend, she slashed the blade through the air.


	21. Door to Wonderland

I dove backwards as the scalpel arced through the air at me. I felt it snag my jacket as it trailed behind me, slicing through the fabric.

"Stop!" I stammered stumbling backwards, "Wait.. please…"

The nurse with the pulsating flesh mound erupting from her back wasn't listening. She continued towards me with single minded fixation, lashing out with the scalpel in her hand whenever she got close.

I sidestepped and slammed bodily into a wall. She had backed me into a corner. Nowhere to run. I drew Cybil's pistol. Shakily, I pointed it at the mutated woman.

"This is your last chance," I said, "I'm warning you, don't make me…"

She lunged. I squeezed the trigger.

The loud bang of the gunshot tore through the air and she staggered backwards. She lunged again, and I fired twice more. She collapsed to the ground, thrashing and twitching.

I ran past her down the hallway without looking back. I came to a large, rusty metal staircase and scrambled down it one flight. When I was convinced that I was safely away, I slumped against a nearby and slid to the ground. My knees and hands were shaking. I felt a lump rising deep inside my chest. It clawed its way up my throat and I leaned forward, gagging and heaving. Nothing came up, although I was left with a bitter, sour taste in the back of my mouth.

Killing the small grey creatures had been unnerving, but this was much worse. That thing was, or at least had used to be, human. Sure, it was self-defense. Sure, I did what I had to do. But that didn't change the sickness I felt in my guts. I wondered if I could keep going. I'd wondered a lot if I would die around the next corner, but now I wondered if I could _emotionally_ keep going. It wasn't just fear that was clawing at me. I felt like my basic sense of humanity was being systematically torn down. Every time I felt it couldn't possibly get worse, Silent Hill somehow found some new way to make it worse.

I closed my eyes and thought of Cheryl. I thought of her worried face looking up at me at home. Her excitedly waving the brochure for Silent Hill around. I thought of her taking her first step and her childish excitement at losing her first tooth. And then I thought of her scared crackling over the phone. "Daddy… Where are you?"

I slowly and deliberately pushed myself to my feet.

This hallway looked much the same as the one on the floor above. The walls, doors, floor, and ceiling were all caked in rust and foul stains I didn't care to examine too closely.

I checked the rooms on this floor but didn't find anything of interest. Most of them, when the doors weren't locked or jammed, were patient's rooms that were is filthy and decaying as the rest of the place. I did find a storage locker with bags of blood just lying on the shelf, and I mused for the second time that this place _really_ wasn't up to health code.

I decided to go down another flight of stairs. I opened the very first door after descending and was greeted by another horror. A man in stained and tattered white doctor's coat. Like the nurse I'd encountered up above, he was doubled over with a pulsating fleshy mass sticking out of his back. He was hunched over a hospital bed, with a completely still figure lying in it, partially covered by a stained sheet. I didn't get a clear look at the figure lying in the bed. I'm not sure I could have stomached it if I did.

The doctor, or the figure that had once been a doctor, turned to me. I saw a glint of metal in his hand.

"Not again," I whispered.

I stepped back and slammed the door shut. I felt the handle twist in my grip and the door shudder is it pulled back a little. The doctor-thing was trying to open it from the other side. Apparently he wasn't so far gone that he couldn't figure out a door. The force pulling on the door was strong too. I probably couldn't hold it shut for long.

The doctor-thing let up for a second, and I seized the chance. I drew the handgun and fired once straight through the door. I heard an inhuman squeal and the pressure on the door let up. I heard shuffling behind the door. I let go of the door handle and slowly stepped backwards, gun still aimed at the door.

I could still hear it shuffling around in there, but the former doctor didn't try to open the door again. After what could have been a few a seconds or a few minutes, I walked away, keeping the door in the corner of my eye until it was out of sight.

The next door I checked was another patient's room that was mercifully mostly empty, but lying on the patient's bed was an odd looking blue, rectangular steel plate with the picture of a somewhat childish looking drawing of a turtle etched on it. Curious, I decided to take it with me. After all, that sort of thing had helped me out so far.

The next few doors were either locked or jammed. Then I came to a room that was marked as on the map. I had no idea whether anything the map said could be relied on in this alternate reality, but maybe something useful would be inside.

When I opened the door, I saw four hospital gurneys spread out throughout the room. What drew my eye was shoved up against the middle of the opposite wall though. It was a refrigerator, maybe the sort where a hospital would store specimens. It was open just a crack and snaking out from the bottom were a set of long, slimy tentacles each ending some kind sucker. The ends had all gathered in one spot on the floor where there was a large rust red stain on the floor. The tentacles were scraping futilely at the stain, making loud slurping sounds.

On the door to the refrigerator there was a hook and dangling on the hook, glinting in the light of the flickering, luminescent light, was another steel plate.

Unfortunately, there was no way to reach the plate without walking into a reach of those nasty looking tentacles. They did seem awfully preoccupied with the dried blood stain on the floor though. Maybe I could sneak past and grab the plate unnoticed? I decided to try it. Slowly, as quietly as I could manage, I started to work my way around towards the refrigerator, giving them a wide birth. I had just barely gotten within their reach when I stepped on a bit of the floor that groaned under my weight.

The tentacles whipped towards me lightning fast and I dove backwards. One of the tentacles grasped the at the cuff of my pant leg and I could feel it tugging powerfully at me before I broke free. I staggered and landed quite heavily and painfully on my butt.

Grimacing, I said some quiet thanks for the small mercy that nobody had seen me embarrass myself like that. It was at least a little consolation for being alone in here. The silver lining to a very dark cloud. When I looked down at my pant leg I saw that the tentacle that had grabbed me there had left a baseball sized hole in the cloth. It didn't look like it had been torn so much as like it had been eaten away by acid.

I shivered as I realized how lucky I was that the thing had sprung for me while I was just barely in reach. Those tentacles were a lot faster than I was. Trying to sneak past them would be suicide.

I looked at the plate again, glinting mockingly out of reach. If I were behaving logically I would have just given up then, but I had the unshakeable feeling that these plates were important, and so far my weird hunches had served me well.

The tentacles had gone back to slurping at the dried blood stain. I stared absently at them for a moment and then I was struck with a thought. The room upstairs with the bags of blood. Hmm…

I left the room and raced back to the floor above, as quickly as possible while still keeping an eye out for any nurses or doctors infected by one of those… parasites. Thankfully I didn't come across any. I went into the storage locker and quickly grabbed one of the blood bags. I hurried back downstairs.

Back in the room with the fridge and the tentacles, I paused for a moment, considering how to proceed. I didn't want to get close to those things again if I could help it. After thinking for a moment, I took out my knife, and slashed the bag of blood open at one end. Then, moving quickly before it could get all over me, I tossed the blood bag across the room, within reach of the tentacles, but a good far to their left, away from the refrigerator and the plate.

The bag landed and crimson red sprayed across the floor, not unlike what you'd see in a particularly gruesome and over-the-top slasher movie. The effect on the tentacle thing in the fridge was nearly instantaneous. I don't know if it heard the splatter or smelled the blood or had some other form of sensory perception, but all of the tentacles were immediately on the pool of fresh blood, lapping at it furiously.

Not wasting a moment, I dashed as quickly as I could for the key while still trying to move somewhat silently. As it turned out, I needn't have bothered. The tentacles paid me no heed as I reached the door and snatched the plate off the hook.

Once I was safely out of reach again I inspected the plate in my hands. This one was tinged a greenish hue and had a figure wearing a large floppy top hat etched into it.

I left the room and continued searching.

I headed downstairs. I'd made it all the way down to the first floor now.

The room had been labelled "Doctor's Office" on the map but looked more like some kind of hellish operating room now. Various wicked looking bladed instruments were sticking out of the walls, and there was a metal operating table in the middle; rusted, corroded, &amp; covered with hideous looking stains I'd prefer not to think about. Lying on the table, glinting in the faint light, was another metal plate. This one was tinted red.

I really didn't want to walk into this room, but that gut feeling told me that these plates were important again. The low light playing across the room made the shadows from the bladed instruments on the walls dance around the room in a nightmarish fashion. I took a step inside. At this point I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if the instruments on the walls sprang to life and reached out to attack me.

No such thing happened however, and I walked very quickly to the plate and snatched it off the table. Without a moment's pause I turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind me.

I looked at the plate in my hands. It had a red etching of a woman in a flowing dress and a crown, holding a scepter with a heart at the end.

Turtle, hat, queen. Queen of hearts. I was beginning to get some idea of what these plates represented, although I still had no clue as to their purpose.

I continued to search the rooms on the floor until I came to the bathroom. I wasn't about to use a toilet in this place, but I did want to at least look inside. It was about what I expected. Filthy and covered with rust and stains that I didn't want to think too much about the origins of.

Hanging on the mirror was another etched metal plate. This one was stained yellow. I glanced carefully around for any kind of monsters or traps before reaching out to take it. As I pulled it off the hook, the glass cracked and I heard an ear splitting scream.

I barely flinched. Honestly I'd been expecting something and this was pretty minor considering what else I'd dealt with. The scream faded and there was no nothing else. No monsters reaching out for me from the shadows of the decaying stalls.

"That's all? You're slipping," I said to the darkness. My voice didn't sound particularly happy in my own ears, but there was a certain grim satisfaction to it. It was interesting how much I thought of everything that had terrorized me in this town as some kind of single entity, a united consciousness. But it did kind of feel that way. Something was unifying it all. Like Alessa had said, it was all connected…

I looked down at the plate in my hands. It had a picture of a cat with a big grin was etched on it. I had four plates now. I left the bathroom and continued to roam. I realized I must be near the main office where I'd encountered Dr. Kaufmann earlier.

I decided to check the office to see if anything was there. The room was empty and looked as normal as could be expected from this twisted, nightmarish version of Alchemilla Hospital. When I walked through door in back, however, things had completely changed.

Instead of a private office, there was a long catwalk with endless black pits off to either side. At the end of the catwalk was a rather strange door. Even amidst my bizarre surroundings it stood out. Huge, oddly colored bolt locks ran vertically and horizontally across the door, holding it closed. Around the top of half the door were four square indentations with steel plates pressed into them, like the ones I had collected around the hospital. Alternating between them were four more square indentations that were empty.

I knew what I needed to do now. Needed? I paused for a moment. I didn't really _need_ to open this door necessarily but… I'd looked all throughout the hospital so far and found no sign of my daughter, despite the old lady's advice. If there was a chance she was behind there, I had to look. Besides, the door didn't look particularly sinister compared to the rest of the hospital. The colorfulness of it made it look almost… childish, like something from a nursery, although the complex mechanisms said otherwise.

I walked up to the door and saw a scrap of notebook paper stuck to the wall next to it. I plucked the paper off the wall. In red pen (thankfully not blood, given this place's unhealthy fixation with the stuff) was scrawled:

_Clouds flowing over a hill_

_Sky on a sunny day_

_Tangerines that are bitter_

_Lucky four-leaf-clover_

_Violets in the garden_

_Dandelions along a path_

_Unavoidable sleeping time_

_Liquid flowing from a slashed wrist_

I wasn't surprised to be greeted by another cryptic clue, but I was surprised that it had been presented to me in such a mundane way. Here was this weird, elaborate door and the clue had been put out for me on plain notebook paper. Hell, it had been stuck to the wall with scotch tape! I couldn't tell if this was written by the same person who left me the clues at the school. Probably.

I turned my attention back to the door. The four plates that were already there were arranged in a cross shape. There was a white one on top with some playing cards etched on it, an orange one a picture of a rabbit (or hare, more accurately, I corrected myself), a purple one with a caterpillar picture and a black one that was too dark for me to make out what the etching on it was.

In between each of these plates were four more indentations. Obviously I needed to put in the plates I'd found in the proper order. I was stumped for several minutes, looking from the door to the written clue and trying to puzzle out how all of this fit into a certain story by Lewis Carroll, before I realized I was overthinking it.

The clues had nothing to do with the story. They were about the colors. That was all.

_Clouds flowing over a hill_. Well clearly that had to be white. _The Sky on a sunny day_. That was blue, which went in between white and _Tangerines that are bitter_, orange. I pushed the plate into place which slid in snugly but smoothly. Next came _Lucky four-leaf-clover_, obviously green, followed by _Violets in the garden_ which was already in its spot at the bottom. _Dandelions along the path_; I pushed in the yellow plate with the cat. After that was _Unavoidable sleeping time_, followed by the rather ominous _Liquid flowing from a slashed wrist_.

I pushed in the red plate and there was a low, groaning noise as the large metal crossbars slid aside. The door swung open for me all on its own. I stepped through the doorway into whatever new peril lay beyond.

**...**

**Surprise! I bet ya'll thought I was dead or had quit. Nope! Life's just been crazy for a while. It didn't help that this was another difficult question to write, with a lot of running around and puzzle solving and not really anything else. I hope it's enjoyable enough for ya. I hope to get another chapter or two done fairly soon, so that if I have to go on another hiatus at least you'll get some more content beforehand. I do intend to finish this, I just can't say how long it'll take.**


	22. The Patient in the Basement

Past the strange doorway with the Alice-in-Wonderland themed plates was a staircase. It was a surprisingly plain. A clean set of metal steps. I started down, and as I climbed, the staircase began to change.

It was pitch black down here, except for my pocket flashlight. As I walked, I gradually saw the plain walls at my sides turned black, like a greasy pot in the oven. Then the walls began to crack open and weep some kind of red fluid. Like flesh that had burned until it burst open. I began to feel a cold draft, and there was a powerful smell. ...But not the sort of smell I was expecting.

Instead of rotting meat, the air was thick with the sharp tang of disinfectant. As I neared the bottom of the stairs, the chemical stench grew so overpowering I had to pull my shirt up over my nose.

The hallway at the bottom was cold, bare, and dark. The walls were still blackened and bleeding. I knew from the distance I'd descended that I must be in the basement. There was something about basements in Silent Hill, wasn't there? At least in this dark, alternate version of the town.

There were a couple of doors to my left and right, probably storage closets, but my eyes were immediately drawn to a door at the end of the hall. Over the door was a single, flickering light bulb. It was the only light source in the basement and it bathed the door in a harsh, yellow glow.

The smell of chemical disinfectant was starting to make me feel lightheaded. i made a beeline for that room. It seemed like the obvious place to search first.

There was a little plexiglas window on the door. I leaned in and squinted through it. It was to dark to really make anything out, but I couldn't see movement at least. I turned the handle. Unlocked. I slipped inside.

The room was... surprisingly normal. The smell seemed a bit less bad inside and it was very quiet. It was a patient's room. Kind of weird that it was all the way down in the basement. Maybe it had been something else at one point and had been remodeled. But why? Surely there were enough rooms for patients upstairs?

There was a set of shelves to my right that had some bottles of medication on it. I took a peak at some of the labels. Loads of antibiotics, painkillers, and some things I couldn't begin to identify.

In front of me was a mostly bare room with a hospital bed and some kind of monitoring machine next to it. The machine seemed to be unplugged.

_Someone's been here..._ I realized.

The sheets on the bed had been pulled aside as though the patient had just gotten up to go to the bathroom and would be back any moment. On the spot on the mattress where the patient must have been laying there was an unpleasant looking discolored stain. It looked like the bed had been disturbed quite recently.

The monitoring machine had something had something resting on it that looked very out of place. A picture frame. I walked over and picked it up. The frame was dusty and the picture had faded. It looked old. I wiped the dust off the picture. It was a girl with short, black hair in an old-fashioned looking school uniform. "Alessa" was written on the bottom. It was her...

She was younger in this picture. About Cheryl's age, actually. She looked just like her. The similarity was downright eerie. The only difference was in her mannerisms, which were the exact opposite. Instead of smiling brightly like Cheryl would when getting her picture taken, Alessa stared out from the sepia-toned image somberly. If it wasn't for that, I would have sworn it _was_ Cheryl, but that expression was all wrong for her.

I shivered. Who _was_ this girl?

My fingers brushed against something cold on the back of the frame. I turned the frame around. There was a key taped to the back, and a scrap of paper. I peeled it off. and unrolled the paper.

_One step behind, but getting closer all the time. The key leads to the examination room. Perhaps you'll make a friend there?_

Gee, this handwriting looked rather familiar...

I crumpled the paper in a ball, tossed it on the ground, and ground it down with the sole of my shoe. At least it had been relatively straightforward this time, but I was getting awfully tired of this. Well there was one thing I was certain of. Alessa been a patient here at one point. What use that could possibly be to me, I didn't know, although I was more sure than ever that Cheryl and Alessa were connected somehow.

I set the picture down. I was a bit careless with it, and the machine's surface wasn't quite flat. The picture tipped and fell on the ground. The glass shattered against the ground.

For a second I thought of picking it up, but I decided it wasn't worth the risk of cutting my hand on the broken glass. I left the cracked picture of Alessa lying on the ground and went back out to the hallway.

I would have to go to the examination room next. That was the same room I had met Dr. Kaufmann in. Was that what the note meant by "making a friend"? I was being led by a trail of bread crumbs again, but I didn't have many other options.


	23. Lisa

I left the room and made my way back out of the basement. Then I made my way around and down the stairs and towards the examination room. Something lept out at me as I was rounding a corner near the door and took a swipe at me. I ducked and it just narrowly missed my face.

It was another doctor with one of those freakish, pulsating flesh mounds sprouting from his back. I scrambled for my gun as he moved to lunge at me again. After my fingers found the handle, I quickly drew it out and brandished it at him. He froze suddenly and stiffened. It was hard to get a clear look at his face with him so horribly hunched over, but I thought I for a brief moment I caught a glimps of his glassy red eyes fluttering in recognition at the sight of the gun. He started circling around me cautiously instead of charging.

"That's right," I said softly, keeping the gun trained on him, "Let's not have any trouble. You and I both just walk away and forget we ever saw each other, okay?"

The disfigured doctor continued shuffling to the side, giving no sign that he had heard or understood me. After a moment, perhaps sensing some imagined opening or weakness in his fevered brain, he lunged forward slashed at me again. Mistake. I fired the gun straight down at his exposed back. The doctor staggered and realed to the side, and before he had a chance to recover I kicked hard, feeling the crack of bone as I sent him sprawling.

I left the doctor laying twitching and ran for the examination room. I didn't care to stick around to see if he would get back up again.

The door was indeed locked when I got there, even though I was sure it hadn't when I'd left the room after Kaufmann earlier. But the key slipped into the lock easily and and the door clicked open.

The light was out, but scanning with my flashlight I could see that the room still looked much like it had in the more normal Silent Hill, just dirtier and a little more cluttered. It was pretty tame compared to the room with the fridge monster or the one with the strange metal impliments.

But what immediately drew my eye was the figure huddled under the table across the room, who I could hear breathing shakily.

As my light rested on the figure, I saw that it was a woman. She was dressed in a nurse's outfit, with a red jacket over it, and she was trembling. She looked up and I caught a glimpse of a frightened expression on her face before she scrampled out from under the table on all fours.

I tensed up for a fraction of a second, but she didn't have one of those hideous parasites growing out of her back and didn't seem to have anything else wrong with her either. She picked herself up off the floor, stepped towards me... and threw her arms around me.

I didn't quite know how to react. The warmth of her touch caught me off guard. Should I hug her back? It seemed unnatural, because she was a stranger, but she was clearly distressed. Maybe I should, to comfort her. I started to move my arm to return the hug, but she broke from the embrace before I had the chance.

She took a step back, but stayed standing quite close to me. Her face lit up with a shaky smile. She had strawberry blonde hair and green eyes, and must have been fairly young, early to mid twenties I would say. She was very pretty.

"Finally," she said in a whisper that dripped with relief, "Someone else who's ok!"

"Who are you? I replied in a hushed tone, the words pretty much spilling out of my mouth on their own accord.

_Brilliant Harry._ I thought to myself. _Nice introduction. No "Are you okay?" or anything. Just get right to the interrogation. Very comforting. Oozing with your natural charm, as always._ I was probably being too hard on myself. Truth be told, on top of being as awkward as ever, I was exhausted and jumpy. I wouldn't have felt bad if it was someone like Kaufmann, who was a jerk anyway, but this woman seemed so nice, and was clearly very distraught. Now _I _was the one coming across as a jerk. Maybe I shouldn't be so judgemental of Kaufmann.

She didn't seem to mind either way. She was still just happy that someone else had found her. "My name's Lisa Garland," She said, gesturing to her name tag, "What's yours?"

"Harry Mason," I said, forcing myself to crack what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Harry, tell me," Lisa said, reaching up and brushing her hand against my coat sleeve, fear in her eyes. "What's happening here? Where is everybody?"

Before I had a chance to reply she pulled her hand back and wrapped her arms around herself like she was cold, staring at the ground with an anguished expression.

"I must have gotten knocked out," she said, "When I came to, everyone was gone." She shook her head. "It's awful."

"So you don't know anything either." I sighed heavily. "Great. I guess we're both in the same boat." I shrugged and did my best to look apologetic. "I just don't get it. It's like this is all some kind of bad dream!"

"Yeah," she whispered, nodding. She closed her eyes and shuddered. "A living nightmare."

I suddenly realized that there was a good chance she'd _known_ the doctors and nurses stumbling around possessed by those massive fleshy parasites. How much worse must it have been for her to have them chasing her... trying to cut her up? And I'd probably _killed_ at least two of them... I very quickly derailed that train of thought.

"Well at least we're still okay," I said, my voice cracking slightly, "Everything is gonna be okay." My voice sounded laughably unconvincing to my own ears.

Lisa nodded, not looking terribly convinced herself.

"Let me ask you," I said, trying to change the subject, "have you seen a little girl around here? Short, black hair? Seven years old?"

"A seven year old girl?" Lisa asked, looking concerned, "What? She's your daughter?"

I nodded. "Yes." By this point I had just about given up hope that the few people who were left in this two... the few people still _alive_ probably... had actually stumbled onto Cheryl by some freak spot of luck. Dahlia was clearly just a random nutjob who had been jerking my chain, and nobody else had seen her. But I was still going to keep asking. Leave no stone unturned.

"A seven year old girl..." Lisa suddenly got a faraway look in her face. Something seemed to be troubling her. Then she quickly shook it off. "I can't say that I have," she said, "I was unconcious all this time." She bit her lip and shrugged. "I'm sorry."

"That's alright," I said, trying and probably failing not to sound too crestfallen.

"Do you know anything about all that weird stuff in the basement?" I asked suddenly, the words leaving my lips almost the instant the thought popped into my mind.

Lisa responded to this with a moment of silence. She frowned. She shifted uncomfortably.

"No," she said, sounding rather guarded all of a sudden, "Why? Is there something down there?"

Lisa's reaction surprised me. At the time, I didn't know what to make of it. She was definitely one of the most normal people I'd met, but now I was sure she was hiding something.

"You don't know?" I asked, trying to sound casual and keep the suspicion out of my voice, "Don't you work here?"

"We're under strict orders never to enter the basement storeroom," she replied, still shuffling uncomfortably and growing a bit curt, "So I really don't know."

The staff was forbidden from going into the basement storeroom? That settled it. It hadn't been one of this strange world's apparitions. A patient had been kept in the basement storeroom, and based on that picture that had been down there it had probably been Alessa. Why the secrecy? It stank to high heaven. I was getting the growing feeling that even before this nightmare had descended upon it, something had been rotten in Silent Hill...

"What did you say was down there?" Lisa asked, giving me an odd look I couldn't read.

"Well... it's..." I hesitated, wondering just how much I should share with her. Could I trust her? She seemed like a nice woman, but...

Before I had a chance to finish, I heard them again. Faint at first, but then growing louder. The sirens. Like on an ambulence. Soft at first, but growing louder. And with each wail, a stabbing pain in my skull.

I grunted and gripped the sides of my head. "Damn!" I said through gritted teeth, "My head!" It had come on so suddenly this time...

"Whats wrong?" Lisa gasped, stepping back, her face growing pale. "Harry? Harry, let me help you!" She reached out towards me, the concern on her face very genuine.

But the noise and the pain had grown all consuming.

"Harry?" I heard faintly...

I toppled forward and the world was swallowed in darkness.


	24. Dahlia Gillespie

I woke up to find myself lying on the thinly cushioned pallet of a hospital bed. The lights were back on, and I had to blink several times before my eyes adjusted. I pushed myself up into a sitting position. My head was still groggy but at least the pain was gone.

I was still in the examination room, but it was no longer dark and disturbing. It was the empty version that I'd met Dr. Kaufmann in earlier.

"Was I dreaming?" I wondered softly, out loud. I was beginning to wonder if it was possible that I was imagining a lot of the strange things that I'd seen. The way I kept passing out and waking up somewhere different filled me with doubt about my senses. But Dr. Kaufmann had seen the monster's too, hadn't he? But that was assuming I hadn't just dreamed him up to. If I'd only dreamed of Lisa it could be possible. But they'd both seemed so real...

I heard the click of a door knob turning and the soft groan of the door opening.

"You were too late."

The all too familiar voice was high and silky, with a slight rasp, and dripping with smugness.

I groaned inwardly but suppressed the urge to voice my disappointment out loud. "It's you," I said, keeping my voice carefully neutral as I slowly stood up and looked towards the door. It was that crazy older woman with the lace shawl, the old-fashioned looking dress and the bare feet. Of the people that I'd met in this town she was the last one that I wanted to see.

"Yes," she said, still sounding far more smug than was wanted or justified, "Dahlia Gillespie."

So now I had a name. I decided to try and get some more information out of her. I needed to take charge of the conversation before she started jerking me around again.

"Tell me everything you know. What's going on?" I asked trying to sound firm, but not angry.

"Darkness," Dahlia said, rather dramatically.

I immediately felt my annoyance spike.

"The town is being devoured by darkness," she continued. Apparently she'd only paused for dramatic effect.

Devoured by darkness. She must have been talking about the weird alternate version of Silent Hill. Okay. That was relevant. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Maybe I could actually learn something useful from her.

"Strength must overcome petty desire. Childish sleep talk," she said.

Or maybe not. Maybe she'd start babbling inanely again.

"I knew this day would come," she said, dripping with smugness again.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, not bothering to hide the exasperation in my voice anymore, "I don't understand a word of this!"

"Believe the evidence of your eyes," she said.

I just glared at her.

"The other church in town," she continued, "That is your destination." She reached into the folds of her dress and pulled out something small that was a light greenish-blue color. She held it up for me to see, but since her hand was covering most of it, I still couldn't tell what it was.

"And why should I help you?" I asked angrily, "You told me Cheryl was at the hospital, but I've looked everywhere and she isn't here!"

Dahlia smirked and shrugged. "As I said, you were to late. Don't blame me for your inadequacies."

Okay, that one stung. Badly. But I'd tried my best, hadn't I? It had been very dangerous and taken a lot of effort just to get over here. Could I have done it faster? I could have not made that unnecessary stop at the police station. But I'd been trying to get help. And without that extra box of ammo I would have been helpless! Would things have been different if I had rushed straight to Alchemilla? Would I have found Cheryl?

"Besides," she continued mercilessly, "You don't really have a choice. If you don't stop it now, we all will be consumed in the darkness with the town. That includes your daughter."

"This is beyond my abilities," she concluded, "Only you can stop it now."

Stop what? The darkness? Admittedly, that sounded like a good idea, but it sure would be nice if she could give me a straighter answer, given that this was so bloody important. Also, if it was beyond her abilities to stop and she needed me to do it, maybe she shouldn't sound so smug and contemptuous all the damn time. I wasn't sure at the time why she would need me anyway. I'm nobody special.

Instead of handing the object to me, she turned and set it on the desk, just like she had with the 'Flauros'.

"Have you not seen the crest marked on the ground all over town?" she asked.

I thought back. I remembered the wet pavement outside the school. The strange symbol. "I saw a mark in the schoolyard.," I said, nodding, "What does it mean?"

"It is the mark of Samael," she said. Then here eyes narrowed, and her voice took on a fiercer tone. "_Don't_ let it be completed."

And with that, she turned, opened the door, and quickly left, shutting it behind her. I was really getting sick of people doing that.

I started to go after her, but stopped to pick up the object on the table. It was an old skeleton key, made out of what looked to be badly tarnished copper, which was why it was the bluish green color. Was this the key to the 'other church' she'd talked about? Was it even in good enough condition to open the door?

I slipped the key into my pocket. I thought about chasing after Dahlia, but quickly decided I wasn't going to bother. Apart from being thoroughly unpleasant, she seemed to have a better handle on things here than anyone else I'd met, save perhaps Alessa. At least she acted like she did. At least she'd been somewhat more coherent this time.

I wondered for a moment if there was a direct correlation between knowing what the hell was going on in Silent Hill and being crazy. Being driven crazy... The thought sent a shiver down my spine.

I was going to find this other church Dahlia had mentioned. Firstly because I didn't have any better idea where to go, and secondly because, even if Cheryl wasn't there, I needed to stop the darkness that was swallowing the town if I actually could. I wasn't so sure about that, but I had to try.

It seemed like that was becoming my new credo. "Even if it doesn't work, I have to try." Not exactly the happiest thought, but it was enough to keep me going, for the time being anyway...

...

**So I'm writing two stories now involving characters named Dahlia who are... not very nice people. I swear I didn't plan that. There must be something about the name Dahlia. Particularly in video games. Particularly in game series I like. I dunno, man.**


	25. Green Lion

I left the room through the door opposite of the one that Dahlia had walked through. Sure enough, the building was a normal hospital now, if one that was strangely empty. The freakish dark version of the hospital seemed unreal now. All my experiences in the dark world seemed unreal. The way I kept collapsing with head pains and waking up someplace else...

After a moment of internal debate I decided to leave the hospital. Whether I chose to believe anything Dahlia Gillespie had told me or not, I had a feeling that I'd already found everything here I was going to find.

The door unlocked and unobstructed. I stepped out onto the street. The fog was as thick as usual and flakes of snow were drifting gently down. I was unsure of whether it had gotten colder or if I was just feeling the cold more now. I pulled my jacket close around me.

I fumbled around in one of my pockets till I found the tarnished key again and pulled it out to inspect it. As I turned it over I realized that someone had scratched an address into the end.

I checked my map. The street was located to the northeast. It didn't look too far. I tucked the map away, kept the key in my hand, and started forward.

The walk was surprisingly uneventful. I was on guard for demonic dogs or bizarre winged beasts the whole time, but the town seemed unusually quiet and still.

I checked the addresses of a couple places along the way to figure out if I was going in the right direction. Signs were not always easy to find but I was able to determine that I was going in the right direction and hadn't passed it by yet.

It turned out the address was easier to find than I'd expected. When I came to it, I immediately knew. It was a rundown looking shop with a very aged, rusted sign hanging above the door that read "antique". On the right side of the door was another sign, this one made of wood and hanging crookedly by one nail. It read "Green Lion" and had a crudely drawn picture of the same. The door was open.

I checked around for a door number and couldn't find one, but I was quite sure this was the place because I'd seen it before. During that bizarre vision I'd had earlier of Alissa walking through a door into what had looked like a shop. This was it. The very same shop.

I stepped inside to find that the shop had one of those set ups where immediately in the entrance was a staircase leading down to the basement level, with another door at the end. Not the most customer service friendly, but not unheard of for small local shops. A light panel up above faintly lit the area.

The staircase and the little alcoves above and below it were filthy. Someone really needed to clean shop. The door at the bottom of the stairs was locked. I inserted the tarnished key, which slid in with the ease of having been used a hundred times before, and unlocked it with a click.

The antique shop was considerably nicer on the inside than the outside. It was still a bit spartan; the floor was bare concrete and the walls were unpainted wood, but there was a a large red and gold rug covering a good portion of the floor and all sorts of assorted nick knacks decorating the room. It was almost cozy.

I flipped through the guest book on the front counter, which turned out to be blank with the previous pages ripped out, and then I started scrounging around the room.

While looking through the random furniture I noticed that a cabinet up against the wall had drag marks visible next to it in the dust on the concrete floor. It had been moved, fairly recently from the look of it.

I walked to the other side and gave it a push. The cabinet was heavy, but moved aside fairly smoothly once I got it moving. Once it was moved aside, it exposed a large hole in the wall. The hole was big enough for me easily fit through by squatting a bit. The edges were unadorned and jagged. It certainly didn't look like the work of a professional architect.

As I leaned forward to try and see what was on the other side, I heard the noise of a door swinging open and shut behind me, followed by heavy footsteps.

I drew the pistol from my waistband and spun around, raising it up and preparing to shoot.

"Harry!" I heard a familiar voice that I wasn't expecting cry out.

I felt a wave of relief like I hadn't felt in a long time wash over me and I lowered the gun. It was Cybil.


	26. Walking on Thin Air

"Harry!" She shouted in alarm, raising her hands in the universal 'I mean no harm' gesture.

"Cybil?" Relief washed over me as I recognized her and I lowered the gun in my hands.

Cybil lowered her arms. "Didn't I tell you not to go blasting me by mistake?" she said in a half joking, half serious tone. Despite her attempt to sound light, her voice was strained and tired.

"Well... I didn't, did I?" I replied, trying to help her lighten the mood, "I guess I'm a little tense. Sorry."

Cybil sighed heavily. She walked closer and I could see dark circles around her eyes. "I'm glad you're ok," she said, "I shouldn't have left you. Things are worse than I thought."

"What are you doing here though?" I asked, "I thought you left town." While I was glad to see her, I realized this probably wasn't actually a good thing. Cybil had been going to get help. If she was still here then there was a good chance no other help was coming.

Cybil shook her head. " Saw you go in here, so I followed you," she said. Her face suddenly scrunched up in frustration. And fear. "I couldn't get out," she continued, "All the roads out of town are blocked. Cars have completely stopped running." She clenched her hands into fists. "The phones and radios are still out too. It's nuts!"

I nodded. "What about my daughter? Did you see her?" Even though I wasn't particulalry hopeful, I had to ask.

Cybil looked away from me for a moment, a strange, faraway look in her eyes. "I did see a girl..." she said. She shrugged, "I only got a glimpse of her through the fog. I went after her, but she vanished. I don't know about your daughter, but..."

"And you just let her go?!" I snapped.

Cybil winced like I'd slapped her.

"Sorry," I said, remembering the time I'd seen Cheryl, or thought I had in the fog, and she'd disappeared. I'd ran after her, but it had made no difference. "I'm sure you did what you could. Where was it?"

"On Bachman Road," Cybil replied, "She was heading towards the lake."

_Then I need to head for the lake, _I decided.

Cybil must have read my thoughts on my face. "Now don't get excited," she said firmly, raising a hand as though to restrain me. "It wasn't like she ran off, exactly." Seeing my confusion, she explained, "There's no place for her to go. The road has been obliterated." Fear and frustration choked her voice again when she said the last bit.

"What?" I asked, "Obliterated.. how? So then Cheryl...?"

Cybil looked away from me again, very uncomfortable. Her face was pale. "There was this... canyon running right through where the road should have gone. Like a fault from an earthquake or something. The asphalt was destroyed and I couldn't see the bottom through the fog. And the girl... Cheryl or whoever it was... it was like she was walking on thin air..."

She trailed off and we stood in silence for a moment. It sounded ridiculous, but was it so impossible in a place where so many impossible things had already happened. But I had gone from hoping the girl Cybil had seen was Cheryl to hoping she wasn't. The idea disturbed me as much as any monster I'd seen so far.

"What about you?" Cybil asked, very obviously trying to change the subject, "Anything?"

I nodded. "Yeah... I met this bizarre woman. Her name's Dahlia Gillespie. Do you know her?"

"Dahlia Gillespie?" Cybil frowned. "No. Can't say I do. And?"

"She said something about the town being devoured by darkness." I thought back to my meetings and conversatinos with Dahlia. I tried to remember some of the other strange things she'd said, but nothing specific was coming to my mind. "Gibberish like that. Any idea what it means?"

"Darkness devouring the town?" Cybil leaned her head to the side and puzzled over the phrase. "Must be on drugs," she said after a moment. "They sell em to the tourists." She seemed to regain confidence grasping onto something that was familiar territory for her. "The force still can't figure out who's behind it. None of our leads have panned out and the investigation is stalled."

"But what could drug trafficking have to do with all this?" I asked.

Cybil shrugged. "I really don't know," she said, "But maybe that's the darkness she was talking about. That's all I can think of."

I grunted, looking as skeptical as I felt. As nice as it would be to dismiss Dahlia's ranting as her way of saying, "Say no to drugs or you'll end up as crazy as I am, kids!" It really didn't seem like her style. And then there were the weird monsters, the sirens, and now a little girl walking through the air... It was all connected somehow. It had to be.

Cybil walked up to the hole in the wall and ran her had along the edge. "What's this?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Just discovered it. Maybe there's something back there."

Cybil nodded. "Let's have a look," she said.

"Wait," I said, "We don't know what's back there. I'd better check it out first."

"I'm a cop," Cybil protested, "I should go."

"No. I'm going," I replied in a tone that let her know that short of physically restraining me she wasn't going to stop me. Cybil didn't know it, but Dahlia Gillespie had sent me here and I didn't want anything bad happening to anyone else because I'd decided to listen to the crazy old woman. That was my line of thinking.

"Alright," Cybil said, clearly annoyed by my attitude but too tired to fight with me about it, "I'll cover you from here. Be careful. If anything looks fishy, get back here on the double."

Apparently she had decided to deal with me by treating me like I was her rookie partner on the force now. That worked for me. "Okay," I nodded.

I turned and started to step into the hole, then I paused as I was struck by a sudden thought. I turned back to Cybil.

"Cybil," I said.

"Yes?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Do you know anything about... well... like some other world... It's like some kind of bad dream?" I was struggling to come up with the right words for what I'd experienced in the school and the hospital when the sirens had blared and everything had gotten dark. It really did feel like a dream after some time had passed.

"What are you talking about?" Cybil asked, looking baffled.

I shrugged. "I'm not sure," I said, "I try to make sense of it, but then my mind goes blank. Everything's dark there, and I hear sirens in the distance." After some wrestling with the fog that had suddenly seemed to settle over my memories, I recalled something else to tell her about. "I met this nurse... Lisa." I remembered collapsing in front of Lisa and waking up in the normal.. er, normalish... hospital lying on a bed. Like a dream indeed. "It's like I was there, but not really. It's all a blur. Like some kind of hallucination, you know?"

It was true. At the time, trying to recall what had happened in the dark world was like trying to see through thick smoke at night. It was only much later that I would be able to recall everything clearly.

"I have no idea what your talking about, Harry," Cybil said, looking rather worried about me now.

"Oh..." I sighed. I realized I'd better drop it before she thought I was as crazy as Dahlia. "I was just wondering. Never mind."

"Harry. You're tired," Cybil said firmly, as though that were the end of the matter.

I nodded. "Yeah, maybe." I forced a smile. "I think we're both a little tired. Anyway, I'll probably be back in a minute or two."

I ducked through the hole. At the time I thought I was keeping Cybil safe by going in alone.

I was a fool.

**...**

**New chapter! **

**By the way everyone, I'm doing a youtube channel with some friends. If you're interested, we've got videos like this: **

** watch?v=ZARnOFSDE_8**

**this**

** watch?v=AvfgBo2OAoA**

**and also this**

** watch?v=aj-XeSy_vZo**

**The theme is games, whether it's video games or tabletop games. We're still getting established but we're hoping to grow into something fun for people. So check it out and subscribe if you're interested. Hope everyone is having a good weekend!**


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